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Like millions of other men, I suffer from male pattern baldness. I guess it started in my late 20′s, when I started hearing cracks like “hey, widow’s peak” from my friends. At first it was just a receding hairline. But these days the crown—which was once a lush, thick, unruly, mass of follicular glory—is now more reminiscent of  Siberian tundra. Nothing grazes there. It is a place where things go to wither and die.

Hairloss stalks you slowly. You know it’s happening but it doesn’t really hit you until that moment you just happen to see yourself in a particular photo or you suddenly catch a glimpse of your reflection and realize, holy shit when did that happen? I’m bald! At that point I went through the same motions almost every other guy goes through. Panic, anger, sadness, anxiety, rage, melancholy, shame, despair, mourning, denial, vindictiveness, and finally, sighed resignation. Though the genetic gods had seen fit to bless me in so many other ways, in this way they had, in their infinite cruelty, decided to curse me.

Baldness. Nature’s way of kicking you to the sidelines and taking you out of the game.

I tried various shampoos and lotions, herbs and pills, and fingertip massage. Once I even went to Vancouver’s Chinatown in search of some mysterious red tablets. I can’t recall the exact  nature of these pills, but they were likely something extracted from dessicated tiger testicles. It’s probably best I did not find them. Needless to say, nothing worked. But hey, at least my scalp felt great!

Though the loss of my lions mane did give me concern, I tried not to obsess too much about it. Fleeting thoughts of wigs, drugs, and even transplant surgery came and went. The fact is that aside from surgical replacement of the dead follicles, hairloss cannot be cured; it can only be slowed down or at best, mildly reversed.

Hairpieces are 99% obvious. The only people who think hairpieces are undetectable are the guys wearing them.

Drugs like Rogaine and Propecia might help a bit, and in some cases allow strangulated follicles to recover, but once you stop taking the pills or rubbing on the lotion all that magical hair vanishes. And there are always side-effects when you start messing around with drugs and hormones, not to mention the monthly side-effects to your wallet.

And surgery. Well, a decent surgeon is going to set you back several thousand dollars, and even then your results are not guaranteed to resemble the flowing mane of your youth. And if your surgery goes bad, well, that’s a whole ‘nother set of problems you now have to deal with, in addition to your balding. And the spots you didn’t have replaced might need touch ups (i.e. more $$$$) down the road.

The question ultimately becomes: how much is your hair worth to you?

In my case (and yours might differ), it was not worth a substantial financial investment or health risk to attempt to preserve or recover my hair. Sure, I miss it. Absolutely. But hey, did you ever notice that in science fiction movies, most of the advanced species are hairless? Us baldies are ahead on the evolutionary path.

And where once hirsute Chewbaccas and Sasquatch creatures roamed the beaches of the 60′s and 70′s, it seems body hair is persona-non-grata these days. “Manscaping” is now a lucrative business as guys go after their back, shoulder, and chest hair. Even scrotal shaving is popular thanks to the abundance of porno. The shaved head is actually cool now, and celebrities like Jason Statham and Vin Diesel are proving that the measure of a man is not reflected by the amount of hair on his head. But for CEOs, movie stars, and others who rely on style over substance, a full head of hair is still an asset.

As for women, I’m sure most prefer a full head of hair, but I’d wager that none prefer a comb over or some other attempt to disguise the loss. Keep it short, keep it neat and clean, and work on your confidence. Besides, women are more attracted to what’s in your wallet, not what’s on your head.

It will take time for society to stop stigmatizing the balding man as “loser” or second fiddle to his more gloriously coiffed peers. But the first step is to stop letting ourselves feel that way.