The Face Every Woman Pulls When You Go To Kiss Their Cheek
Anyone who hasn’t been kissed by a man has missed out on one of life’s great enriching experiences. Line up. They’ve also usually got horrible expectations of what your beard will feel like dragged across their apparently perfect skin: they expect sandpaper on genitals style discomfort, and as a result just as you’re moving in for the peck, you catch sight of the inevitable Fear Factor face, as they brace themselves for the pain that never comes.
Moulting Into Your Own Food
Having someone else’s hair in your food is a disgrace. Having your own hair fall into your food as you’re eating it is just bloody tragic.
Unwarranted Beard Attention
What nobody tells you when you decide to start cultivating a face thatch is that beards are the great unifier: between beard fellows and those who aspire to be bearded, and the women and men who love them. You will find this out – particularly at music festivals – as strangers compliment you on your beard. For a British man in particular, this is particularly jarring: we are not pieces of meat. Stop ogling us.
Unless you nip it in the bud, some – usually drunk – people will take it to the next stage and stroke you uninvited, as if it’s perfect fine to just not have any personal boundaries.
“Ruining” Everyone’s Special Photos
Try growing a beard in the run up to your sister/cousin/friend’s wedding and watch what happens. You will be told, in no uncertain terms that your frivilous decision must be gone by the time the event comes round, as if all of the photos will look like an overly-friendly tramp has just borrowed a tuxedo and is wandering around in the background.
The Dilemma Of Conditioner
If you don’t maintain your beard, it will smell and begin to look like you genuinely are a tramp. If you do, and choose normal conditioner, as opposed to something tailored specifically to beard hair, you will look like a blow-dried pom-pom.
Overzealous Barbers
My hair is on my head, why are your scissors and shaver anywhere near my face? Not only is that where I keep most of my sensitive things, I have no interest in your uninvited attempts to tame my beard. And if you shave off my sideburns again leaving no transition between head and beard, I will shave you completely bald myself.
Being Unable To Eat Like A Grown-Up
Soup is out, and so is anything with any kind of sauce, unless you want to have to explain why you’ve got tomato reduction or a red wine jus all over your face 4 hours after you ate anything. The whole eating situation requires no obstacles – it’s not that big a hole at the end of the day – and inevitably making it more difficult means running the risk of looking like a toddler for hours after you eat.
Ginger
Got black hair? Brown? Blonde? Tough luck, bub, you’re getting a beard the colour of the sun. Even the swarthiest of colouring makes way for the mighty ginger gene, without any real scientific reasoning. So expect grief.
Accidentally Trimming Too Much
As anyone who has attempted to “even” their eyebrows up will attest, amateur beard maintenance isn’t for everyone, and will inevitably lead to something ugly and lop-sided. Or worse, as you attempt to take a little bit more off to even the other side up, you’ll end up looking like a 12 year old, clean-shaved child in no time.
Guilt By Association
Do you know what Harold Shipman, Peter Sutcliffe, Rolf Harris and Charles Manson have in common? They’re all raving psychotic criminals with no moral compass. It has literally nothing to do with how they choose to keep their chins warm. But try telling that to the person you’re walking behind down a dark alleyway…
Blowing Your Nose Becomes A Lottery
When you’re clean shaving, noticing that you haven’t quite wiped away your nose drippings is as easy as feeling wetness on your skin. When you’ve got a beard, you’d better make damn sure you blow your nose in front of a mirror every single time, or you’re going out in public with incriminating snail trails in your beard, and our image really doesn’t need that.
Not Being Able To Eat Garlic Without Stinking For Days
Forget aftershave: if you want something delicious smelling that will mask all of your body odours for the coming week and a half, just eat a very small amount of garlic, making sure it comes into contact with a couple of hairs on the way in. And hey presto! You too will be able to smell like Jamie Oliver’s fingers for the foreseeable future.
Zips
Bearded man, know your enemy. Pulling up a zip anywhere near your face is a recipe for disaster, so either invest in a Paddington Bear style button-up coat, or rock the unfastened look. Under no circumstances use zips. Or velcro for that matter.
Passport Control
No Sir, I am not attempting to enter your country on someone else’s documentation. I am not a terrorist, and I’m pretty sure there’s no need to get your supervisor. Just put your fingers over the bottom part of the passport photo, it’s not that difficult.
Literally Having To Justify Your Beard Every Single Day
Would you ask someone why they have their hair a certain way? Or why they’re wearing the clothes they’ve chosen to? Would you make them feel like they should have to defend the simplest of aesthetic choices? No? So why is that courtesy not extended to the bearded minority of the world.
This is the everyday struggle of the bearded man (and indeed the bearded woman) – why won’t you shave? Isn’t it itchy? But you look so much older. Do you know beards make you look fatter? LEAVE ME ALONE.
