The Good Men Project

By PAUL KIDWELL

I have a question for you men who wear toupees or use some other means to try covering your baldness (hair plugs, scalp paints, reductions, and, when all else fails, the comb-over): Just who do you think you’re fooling? Do you actually believe that what sits atop your head qualifies as hair? It may cover the baldness, but it certainly does not hide it.

As one experienced in the finer points of rug-spotting, I can spy a toupee from as far away as 100 yards. Maybe it’s because of the Cro-Magnon hairline that most toupees create, or the fact that your “hair” remains as immobile as a car’s hood ornament, even in the stiffest wind. Or perhaps it’s that spot in the back of your head where fiction meets reality, the place where the wig ends and the real hair juts out, making it look as if a wallet is emerging from under your toupee.

Your attempt to pull the wig over our eyes isn’t working, and more important, you look like hell. So just stop it.

What I really want to know is why do you wear a toupee; why have you decided it’s better to be ridiculed and mocked—albeit mostly behind your back—than to acquiesce to genetics?

It’s because of women, right? You really believe that your looks are improved with that mound of faux hair crowning your head. You believe that by covering up the baldness, you become more appealing to the opposite sex. That has to be the reason. In your mind, your parents’ genes have dealt you the worst hand imaginable, and the only things you need to reach relationship nirvana are more hair and less scalp.

You couldn’t be more wrong.

Before we consider the alternatives to toupees and other cover-ups, I should pause here to say that I’m a member of the balding brethren; I’ve watched my hair twist and turn down the shower drain. I understand how a receding hairline, male patterned baldness, and that once dime-sized bald spot on the crown of your head that now resembles an exit wound from a Glock at close range can affect you. I watch as my hair retreats from all sides and angles, and in doing so I feel the collective pain of our plight. I get how this can chip away at your self-esteem, but I guess I don’t let it bother me much. When it comes to hair, I’ve been burdened with my father’s DNA, but I’ve adhered to my mother’s mantra, who urged her sons to, “Control what you can control, and let the other stuff go.”

I realize that as someone who lets the hair fall where it may I’m among a minority, but I’ve never had a women reject me for my hair’s lack of quality and quantity—at least not that I know of. Still, I will concede that more than a smattering of women show little interest in becoming romantically involved with a man whose best hair days are behind him. And God knows I have been rejected for far less convictable crimes than a thin head of hair, so I understand the fickleness of women.

But will a toupee really improve your chances with such women? You can blame hair loss on your parents, but your attempt to fix it with a wig puts the bull’s-eye on your back and paints a portrait of a man who is riddled with self-doubt and not afraid to traffic in deception. It’s not an attractive image.

I found a woman who likes me for the man, husband, father and all-around sexy guy who I am. She could not care less that the thickness of my hair is not what it was when we first met. You can do the same.

Any woman who puts hair before heart is not worth wasting one scintilla of mental energy, time, or money. Take my advice: Don’t try to attract a woman who could not see beyond the glare from your ever-enlarging forehead into the inner glow of your warmth, charm, intelligence, and all that other terrific stuff that makes you who you are.

Toss the rug and hold on to you dignity.

*****

Paul Kidwell is a public relations consultant and writer. He lives with his wife and son in Boston.

[photo by Alan Light]

By DAVID ATCHISON

It seems that as we go through life, we, as humans, make certain assumptions. We assume that certain experiences are willed to us by the sheer fact we exist. 

I’m reminded of sitting in court as a teen and having a judge remind me that a driver’s license wasn’t a “right” it was a “privilege.”

That line of thinking should be used when considering the definition of a man. 

There are a lot of “adults” in the world. In the United States, you are considered an adult at the age of 18. For some, it allows more freedoms; but for others involved in more questionable pursuits, it involves greater consequences. These consequences and freedoms are conferred on those over 18 because the American people have agreed that, by this age, a human has learned specific lessons and matured to a certain point.

After our 18th birthday, we don’t have another of these cultural recognitions of maturation until 21—the age at which we are allowed to legally moderate our personal consumption of alcohol. Supposedly we are mature enough to do this, and many believe at that point they are a full realized men simply because they’ve reached that point. In their minds, they deserve all the privileges and respect conferred on men.

This is troublesome. We don’t share a uniform definition of what makes a man anymore. There are plenty of bill-paying adults who don’t act like men. They act like dutiful children and frequently shirk responsibilities they don’t want to undertake. As we grow, so grows our sphere of accountability and our intellect. It becomes progressively easier to rationalize our immature and non-manlike behaviors because we know so much. We become dime store relativist, finding viable excuses for our less-than-manly behaviors.

Instead of using our intelligence to further enlighten us, we use it to allow guilt-free indulgences into very immature and base behaviors. I myself am guilty of this from time to time, but part of what makes me a man is that I take accountability for my mistakes. It’s my belief that a large part of the wisdom of men of olde came from this.

Being a man is a lifetime journey. It can’t be quantified by measuring superficial things like one’s hobbies. (Hey, comic book–reading and video game–playing men.) The true test of manhood is self examination. We must examine how well we deal with people on a regular basis. How many people are we deceptive with? How many people are we using? How many people do we owe apologies to? How many responsibilities have we shrugged off? How often have we cheated ourselves by being undisciplined in our personal life? How many lies to do we tell ourselves to continue doing things we want to do as adults that directly conflict with what we should be doing as men.

If you die over the age of 18, you will die an adult, but I would hope that in your value system you’ll die a man. I hope you’ll take the time to sit down and create a value system for yourself to compare yourself to. We need these, because the eyes of the future are upon us. Boys watch us daily. Both consciously and subconsciously they’re not only learning how to be adults, but how to be men.

When my generation is too old to run the country, I hope we’ve set a good enough example and left the world in the hands of good men, not just some responsible adults.

*****

David Atchison is a writer, producer and journalist whose work has appeared in a variety of mediums. He co-created and writes the Occult Crimes Taskforce with actress Rosario Dawson and illustrator Tony Shasteen for 12 Gauge Comics. OCT was optioned by Dimension Films. Atchison also wrote the Method Man Graphic Novel with hip-hop mainstay Method Man for Grand Central Publishing as well as successfully pitching True Believer, an in-production back door pilot for NBC Universal’s SyFy.

Before entertainment writing, Atchison served as military journalist and photographer for the Air Force and Reserve. Trained at the Defense Information School at Fort Meade, Maryland, he has worked in support of operations in Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq and Southeast Asia.