should i grow a beard?

hi beardos, i have an embarrassing issue so i'm going to state it publicly and ask for advice because it's 2014.

i'm trying to grow this beard thing. first time. it started off looking like a really bad teenbeard, as i knew it would, but after a few weeks it filled in a little. things are ok. oh yeah, except for one thing:

it doesn't grow up at the top, starting at about an inch beneath my ears. there's a gap. it's embarrassing. people are asking me if i'm doing it on purpose. what a fucking disaster.

what should i do? is this is a sign from above? do i just keep waiting? do i fake it and do some sort of blended thing where i trim it so that it gradually fades in? do i ditch the teenbeard and just go with the mustache alone? give it another 15 years and try again? wtf is wrong with me?

When I was younger, I had that problem. As I got older, hair started growing in that little area between sideburn and beard and has done so ever since. I don't know how much that had to do with shaving and how much that had to do with just biological aging or what.

Just keep waiting. It will come. Unless it doesn't. Then I don't know what to do with you.

It took until my 30s for the mustache to come in. It's not the thick, luscious Selleck like mustache I desire, but it suffices.

visual representation of the problem:

http://i.imgur.com/DJhb2jG.jpg

Oh dear, that's much more severe a hair deficit than I had ever suffered, but my brother was sort of in your boat and his finally started coming in after he turned 32 or so.

this morning's division meeting took an excruciating turn when someone mentioned the gap, and then someone else said something about it looking like abe lincoln, and then someone else who felt sorry for me tried to make me feel better by reminding everyone that abe lincoln was a great president

i mean seriously, should i just shave off this monstrosity, deal with a few more days of awkward comments at work about how it's not there any more, and move on with my life?

http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/j/Anchor_Beard.jpg

Looks kind of neckbeardy. I would lose it.

Revisit the idea again in a year or two and see how things develop. Don't go around looking like Andrew Luck, though.

is there anything happening in the gap at all? any hopeful blonde shoots?

if not, you need to shave it.

like...just a few? not too many! i wish i could just go off to an island for a few months and see what happens, away from the judging eyes of humanity

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gs8ryNQPGsg/UaUo28LYCQI/AAAAAAAAAew/JWk_6zVzh7k/s1600/Hannibal7.jpg

ok. think i'm going to shave it. leave the stache for an evening, but maybe ditch that as well. RIP 2014 halfbeard. i'll try again when i'm even older

i'll probably be able to grow a full beard on my butt before i can grow one on my face

happens to the best of us

another decade or two and you can grow your ear hair out to cover the empty spots

it is done.

what a nightmare

Oh man - had excellent advice to give. If only I had seen this sooner

what was the advice?

Shave it. Shave it all

i felt your advice waves enter my mind before you even projected them, and carried out the task

i think you have to go past the point you would feel comfortable with elsewhere on your face, until everything you need bearded is bearded

then trim the rest to suit

and never shave it again

that's how to do it

then other men will know that you are a patient man who can be relied upon when things are really important (e.g. growing beards)

So is growing a beard really a painstakingly slow process for some men?

i had completely forgotten about my abandoned factory/bustling courtyard dilemma until this thread, unlike the hair that hypothetically would grow near my upperjaws, popped up

it is a very uneven process for me. I could have a very full midwestern goatee very quickly, but everything else is pretty sparse.

Mine seems to have reached a peak where it won't grow much further. It's okay though.

Just keep trying guys.

i tried growing a beard a while ago and got the same factory floor problem. i can grow a pretty legit mustache, though, but it makes me look like I'm trying out a Sgt. Peppers costume for Halloween. i've just resigned myself to no facial hair at all.

Don't think I can shave again in case this happens:

http://www.webburgr.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/shave-beard-001.jpg

(with thanks to pfunkboy)

You know, there may be a point in your life where looking younger, one might even say "boyish," will be feature not bug.

haha, it's the next day after shaving though - it takes your face a while to recover and until then you get this weird puffy top lip and your face looks like a marshmallow.

So glad my current bf can't grow a not-laughable beard and I will never have to have this conversation with him.

this arbitrary thing about my body gives me points in the man club scam, yaaaay

i am never growing a beard

you should grow a beard

Grow a beard.

Stop hiding behind that beard, it alternately mutes and distorts your facial expressions

existential beard problems.

why does the beard exist? what is the purpose of the beard? can one truly be fulfilled by achieving the perfect beard?

that cartoon is v accurate to my experience, was surprising to shave for the first time in eight years and be faced with the me of eight years ago.

shaved mine this morning (not because of this thread)

People with beards should be put to death

yeah that cartoon way otm. just cut mine off for the first time in a couple years cuz i'm in a play and it took me from like 35 to 18. (i am neither of these ages.)

I've grown mine into a corner, it's become too thick that I don't know how to extend length without it getting out of control. I guess the trick is to trim the sides and let it grow off thin jawline?

yeah i never mastered the late stage.

(it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine a change to my beard)

yea having a well-kept, maintained, long beard is a challenge. i find it easier to just keep a very short beard that is trimmed to stubble once a month or so. mine is super-thick, dark and curly and it gets unruly pretty fast.

thank god i stopped shaving a few years ago, my life improved dramatically. shaving was fucking miserable, especially w/ the beard my genes gave me. my skin is so much healthier now.

the lengths i went to try to get a smooth, comfortable, and irritation-free shave were painstaking, and i would never even call even the best shaves i had "comfortable"