Going bald and getting over it

Robert McNamara is a card carrying member of the bald brothers fraternity. But his struggle with losing his hair at a young age took him through various stages of denial until he was finally liberated.

I was 19 when I realised I was different. After arriving home to Limerick from a holiday with my friends in Tenerife, we met up to peruse the holiday snaps and have a final few beers before getting back to the daily grind.

What should have been a fun occasion to look back on a great holiday quickly turned sour.

Staring out from the pictures was not me, but a person masquerading as me.

I sort of recognised the guy but this imposter had somehow slipped into our photos uninvited.

This man thought he had been hiding his secret from the world but everyone knew.

My ‘secret’ was that my hairline was receding rapidly from the front. No creative brushing, spiking or application of hair gel could hide it anymore.

My world was falling apart and I was not even 20 yet.

Meeting girls, socialising and college, in that order, were my main priorities in life. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me.

I mean, my father and pretty much all the males in his family were bald. But dad’s hairline didn’t start to recede until his 30s.

Besides, everyone says that your hairline comes from your mother’s side — ironically, they all have full heads of hair.

What made all of this worse was that I loved my barnet. I’m pretty sure I spent enough on Brylcreem to put its shareholder’s kids through college.

When Dax wax became popular I sported a rather elaborate spiked fringe and used to store the stuff in my fridge to make sure it was extra hard to hold my creation in place.

The lads didn’t really say much and it was worse than a barrage of slagging. They actually looked like they felt sorry for me.

It was similar to the way people treat you after the death of a pet. They just stared at me with a sorrowful empathy and returned to their normal conversation.

I went into stage of denial and began getting my hair cut shorter and shorter in a vain attempt to make it less obvious.

I should have flagged the signs the world was putting in front of me — one being the barber shop I frequented had three employees, all as bald as Kojak after a Gillette MACH3 party.

I thought I had pulled off the crop look superbly and had fooled everyone until one of the most cringeworthy moments of my life arrived.

I was sitting in my grandparents kitchen enjoying a nice cup of tea and a biscuit. My nana was chatting away about normal everyday things until her expression turned a little more serious.

She got up from her chair and opened one of the kitchen drawers. She took out a newspaper clipping, placed it on the table in front of me and said: “Here, I saw this and thought you might want to try it.”

To my horror, it was an advertisement for Regaine.

When your dear nana is trying to give you tips on how you look, you know the game is up.

Something had to be done.

I took her advice and purchased — at great cost — a month’s supply of Regaine from a pharmacy.

The fact that the attractive young girl behind the counter couldn’t help but snigger as she handed over the goods didn’t help my confidence one bit.

Needless to say, it had no effect. My hairline continued to recede.

Despite my many faults, I’ve never been a quitter. If I really want something, I’ll exhaust every option available until I accept defeat. So, I devised a cunning plan.

My hair was brown and I’m a typically Irish fair skinned person. I thought that if I made my hair lighter in colour my rapid hair loss would be less obvious to the naked eye.

I threw the remaining Regaine in the bin, purchased a bleach kit, locked myself into my parent’s bathroom and set about this ingenious ruse.

After an hour or so, I looked in the mirror and thought it looked fantastic.

That very night I decided to go out with my friends to show off my new look. There were a few sarcastic comments, as you’d expect, but nothing to shake my belief that I’d finally found the solution.

Everything was going great. Confidence restored, I started to enjoy myself and began chatting to this really nice girl in a club.

We were getting on great until she said: “Hey, do you know who you really look like? Gunther from Friends.”

That was the end of that.

After this I tried a rather ridiculous goatee that I imagined may avert people’s eyes away from the top of my head. Again, it was a spectacular failure.

I also went through a skull cap wearing phase but that was only a solution for the height of winter.

The moment of acceptance finally came across the Atlantic ocean.

Three years on from the Tenerife holiday and those horrifying snaps, I was now 22 and living on University of Toronto campus with a few of my friends from home and a host of other young travellers.

We became friendly with a lad from Dublin. Neil was a bit older than us and we all kind of looked up to him. He was a great guy to be around and what he said went as far as we were concerned.

My hairline became a topic of conversation one night as we were all having a few drinks in our house. I went to the kitchen to get another beer and when I came back everyone was silent.

Neil was standing there with an electric razor.

“It’s time, Rob,” he said.

So, beer in hand, I accepted my fate like a man condemned to the chair. The ceremonial head shaving began. It should have felt like a death but, on the contrary, it felt like a baptism.

Once it was over I looked in the mirror. Neil stood behind me, waiting to see how I reacted.

He needn’t have been concerned about my emotional state. I no longer looked like a prematurely ageing man, I actually looked younger.

I felt free, like a huge burden had been lifted from me. I no longer had to live a lie, the world was finally going to see the real Rob, the one I had been hiding since my late teens.

I was out, I was bald and I was proud.

The comments from everyone in my social circle were immediately positive. My confidence returned and I was able to chat to members of the opposite sex without worrying if they were thinking about my hairline.

In late 2007, I met my lovely wife. She had never known the spiky haired version of me and therefore my baldness wasn’t an issue.

People often ask me if I’d like my hair back. My emphatic response is always: “NO!”

Despite the odd bit of slagging and the children in my extended family occasionally asking me, “Rob, why have you got no hair?”, I absolutely love it.

It’s low maintenance, it saves money on haircuts and there really is nothing quite like the feeling of a freshly shaved head — it’s magnificent.

Then there’s the solidarity of my bald brothers. The next time you see two bald men passing each other on the street, watch closely.

You’ll see we give each other the slightest nod. It’s as if to say: “I see you brother, keep the faith.”

I understand why some men freak out about going bald but I hate the way hair restoration clinics ridicule my people in order to sell their services.

There’s no need to stigmatise those who choose ‘the bald way’.

All the money spent on styling and hair care products, all the time wasted in front of the mirror, all that worry about what are essentially dead skin cells growing out of your head.

Losing your hair does not signal the end of your youth or the ceding of your masculinity, it’s just another stage in your life.

SHAVE OR SAVE

A lot of famous male celebs have struggled with losing their hair. It seems the option to shave or save can often come down to affordability. Most men who have to dosh will get hair restoration treatments.

Footballer Wayne Rooney and actor James Nesbitt are two who have been very open about their hair transplants.

Jeremy Piven of Entourage fame had treatment to restore his locks which reportedly cost £9,000 (€12,695). Others like Chris Martin of Coldplay and actors Matthew McConaughey and Jude Law are less forthcoming about how the tide suddenly reversed on their hairlines.

Sean Connery famously wore a hairpiece in all his appearances as James Bond.

But being bald hasn’t done Patrick Stewart (pictured above), Bruce Willis, Jason Statham or Vin Diesel any harm.