This is the inevitable thread for ILxors in their forties

All this talk of balding makes this thread deeply 'forty-something', although it's confined to forty-something men.

No it is not!

I don’t have much gray, but I do have one gray hair in my right eyebrow that gets the plucking treatment.

My mom is bummed by thinning hair in her 70s. Chemo probably didn’t help.

No it is not!

I meant the eager enthusiasm for discussing the subject of baldness was confined to men.

Yeah I don’t think I realized how sensitive guys were about the balding thing!

Having a hairline that resembles a public toilet seat is a thing that requires some adjustment.

FWIW my best friend has always had a thing for older bad guys (with bad teeth to boot) so for everyone worried about losing their hair just shave that shit. It’s just hair and there are people out there who are totally into it!

Bald not bad thought tbh in her base both work.

xpost lol aww ok fair point

I have so much hair that even if it does start thinning it would still be a lot.

I have a few weird chin and neck hairs but I got those in my 30s.

i had vitamin d deficiency and for a while i seemed to be losing my hair at an alarming rate, it was v unsettling

also thanks to genes inherited from my good old Dad I have hella, mega nose hair, full-on gross spider legs level. they require constant trimming. they havent gone gray yet but i am sure that’ll be the only hair left when i’m like 90

FWIW my best friend has always had a thing for older bad guys (with bad teeth to boot) so for everyone worried about losing their hair just shave that shit. It’s just hair and there are people out there who are totally into it!

making the assumption that bad = bald ..
i can confirm that this is true.
shave and embrace the new world.

This new world for me = small children throw apples at me, I'm effectively Cezanne without the artistic talent!

“I know a few things from his last years when he was old and shabby and children followed him every day on his way to his studio, throwing stones at him as if at a stray dog. But inside, way inside, he was marvelously beautiful.”

Oh, I just thought of a fun thing I'm experiencing lately! So, pretty much totes bald on top, to the extent that I don't really have to do any maintenance aside from pruning the random hair that forgets nothing grows there anymore. Well, since I've also been going grey, those strays tend to now be stark white and go pretty much unnoticed until the lighting is just right and reveals a snowy two-inch strand jutting straight out of my otherwise bald pate like a radio antenna desperately seeking the long-lost signal of youthful dignity.

hee hee

Xposts - lol yes bad = bald there

Xposts - lol yes bad = bald there

losing my hair happened in my twenties so I had to get over it quickly. Once I went through denial/depression/anger/rogaine/acceptance, I was fine. I shaved it to a Statham and never looked back.

Definitely went on dates with people who didn't like the bald thing, but i didn't ever get down about it, weirdly. And eventually I met someone who *really* likes the bald thing.

Shaving your head down is *almost* like hiding it but it's also saying fuck it, this is who I am.

shaved heads look fine and i never think of them as a sign of incipient baldness, i view them as a sound aesthetic choice that’s been made.

This ^^ ! I think that even if it is cause you’re balding, this is helpful to remember.

i agree

mr veg had long hair until his hairline receded too far back - then he cut it all off because he said he didn’t want to look like David Crosby lol <3

I honestly think bald on top with very long hair, inclusive of ponytails and braids, is an extremely strong look and in no way worthy of shame

yeah idk, mr veg had a real thing about that look.

silby: you mean a Mick Fleetwood?

Sorry, the "baldytail" is the worst haircut in human history. Wanna be bald and still have long(ish) hair? Put a hat on and never take it off, like Brian Johnson from AC/DC or Klaus Meine from Scorpions.

Yeah, agreed. That is literally NEVER a good look.

Not even with a brightly coloured waistcoat?

A friend of mine used to call that hairdo The Faded Glory.

Add an inexplicable little leather pouch on the belt to the waistcoat and yes it really could work

The highest concentration of baldytails I have ever seen in one space at one time (this will surprise absolutely no one) was a King Crimson concert last summer.

and that was just on stage

I loved that Futurama gave Wernstrom, its egomaniacal, petulant scientist character, a baldytail.

https://morbotron.com/img/S07E08/273189.jpg

Also popular at Ren Faire

the "bill bailey" is alright if you can own it.

nope

Bill gets a pass because he's Bill but even he admits he's part man part troll and I think the hair is a lot of that.

if you give me enough time i can come up with other examples of successful bill baileys but they'd have to be self effacing comedians who look exactly like bill bailey

lol :)

omg i mistook bill bailey (who i had to google, no idea who that guy is) for beetle bailey
on account of the hat and implied attitude? idk

my 40s have been great so far but sometimes i find myself being completely out of the loop wrt a conversation in which people use references to imply something and i am not aware of what that thing is or what it means

oh well! i'm alright w my 40s so far otherwise.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/Recruta_zero_03.png

Oh man, yeah, these kids today with their references. I've been getting some first-hand experience with the 'clueless adult' archetype as I've slowly relinquished all effort wrt keeping up with what's 'hip' and 'dope' and 'fresh'.

the thing is that i don't care that i don't know -- i can look it up, whatever, or just ignore it. it's just a sign to me that i am on the outside looking in. whatever! i am still a decent person and know plenty of interesting things. i am not very into complaining about being in my 40s tbh.

i've never felt particularly interested in keeping up with what's cool which might make me a "cob nobbler" or a "lamestain" but i guess rather than keeping up i prefer to just go through life making discoveries randomly.

with music i actually use the ILM year end poll to discover what's good or rather what i like from the previous year. though i think i'm generally pretty good about keeping up with certain types of new music.

So sad right now that only someone in their 40s would pick up on your grunge insults.

I'm generally at least five years behind the curve on most 'hip' pop culture. I'm really not worried about it at all. Can't wait to discover fidget spinners sometime in 2021, though.

haaa i am in my 40s and i still didn't get it
tbh this is a lifelong issue for me that has only gotten more pronounced as i age, it's ok

i too prefer to skip my way through life enjoying what i enjoy & discovering things at my own pace

La Lechera otm. Enjoy what you enjoy; I believe that it's wrongheaded to regard "keeping up with ___" as a moral imperative rather than a taste / preference / lifestyle choice.

I used to wonder "How can my grandmother not know who Bruce Springsteen is?"

And now I wonder, "How in the world can my kids not know who Bruce Springsteen is?"

there's always a time to learn about something

my dad has always done this really REALLY annoying thing where I will show an understanding of, say, Busby Berkeley movies and he's like flabberghasted, and asks "how do you know about Busby Berkeley movies???" like I could only possibly know about things that have happened while I was alive, like that is even logical. he's done it since i was a teenager, it's so annoying! he still does it!

There are times when a casual onlooker might assume that I was unaware that mass media had continued to be produced after I was born.

Generally speaking, most people are best at appreciating and evaluating cultural products produced when they were aged 15-20.

Coincidentally, that's exactly when culture feels like it is of life-or-death importance; that's when your favorite band is likeliest to define your social group and your wardrobe and your self-image.

Of course there are always also people who are WAY into Buster Keaton or Duke Ellington or Emily Dickinson or w/ev from a young age; my hat is off to those people as well.