My dad was bald at 20 and did the 70's comb over my whole life. It took me until my 30s for the bald spot to start then it went quick. Unlike my father who fought it and tried to hide it, I embraced it and just shaved my head. I've had a beard for the past 30 years. it's almost entirely grey. I couldn't care less. Growing old sucks but it beats the alternative.
When I created an account on this message board back when I was in law school and about 24 years old, it never occurred to me that I’d one day encounter a thread like this one. But the answer is, yes, I’ve embraced my Clooney Years.
54 years old, with a full head of thick hair. Salt and pepper, but mostly salt (about 75% white). The problem with salt & pepper is you gotta keep it short, well-groomed, and get it cut very frequently (which I'm too cheap to do). I confess that I'm fighting it.
Cut your own hair. It's fast and free, other than your time and equipment. It pays for itself in a few months.
Yep. Just professional Oster Classic clippers with different guides. You can watch YouTube videos. It’s easy.
Oddly enough, my head is 100% pepper and my beard is 100% salt. I have a bald spot about the size of the palm of my hand, but I'm not ready to shave it just yet because I'm pretty tall and the rest of my hair is actually pretty thick. I have a beard that looks exactly like this: I like it because it hides my double chin!
Once in my late 30s, my boss had asked me if I wanted to dye my beard, make me look younger. Which I wasn't interested in. But he was around retirement age and facing age discrimination (he later took a demotion to keep his job), so I can understand his insecurity around aging. Maybe when I get to 60, I'll need to think about making myself look younger to keep Zoomers from taking my job.
It won’t matter with video conferencing without videos. It hardly matters now. I worked with a guy who I became pretty good friends with. We are like 2 weeks apart in age but he went white super early. He got a divorce and died his hair jet black, I mean, you could straight up tell, especially when he neglected to dye it weekly and the white creeped out along his hairline. I guess it didn’t matter, he scored a very cute girl about 15 years younger than him and they got married. I guess it goes to show that confidence is king and that women look at more that just physical in a mate. ****ing weird. /shrug. Edit- tangentially, based on my experience working with a lot of older people, I don’t think age discrimination is really a thing. It’s more the failure to adapt to new work styles and ways of thinking. That’s generally associated with ‘older’ people but I think if you show you’re ahead of work trends you do just fine.
