Do you ever get asked the same question over and over again by different people? Like, whenever you have a initial conversation with someone new that countdown clock in your head starts ticking because you just know they’re going to ask it? Do you wonder if these people are part of a secret society devoted to annoying the shit out of you? I do!

It goes like this…let’s say I’m at a bar and another patron strikes up a conversation with me. Without fail, and I really mean WITHOUT FAIL, they will ask me a specific question about my beard. I don’t get it. Like, yeah, I understand that it’s an important part of why I’m so wickedly handsome. And yeah, it is definitely an above average amount of hair growing out of my face. It’s naturally going to be a conversation piece, I accept this. Its never going to be about my bedroom eyes or my pouty, kissable lips. Nope. It’s always going to be about the beard, but does it have to be the same fucking question ad nauseam?

“So how long did it take you to grow that?”

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHH

It’s a different answer each time. Sometimes, it’s a year. Other times it’s six months. I got someone to believe 3 months once. I gotta have my fun with this. I deserve it. I don’t know how to give the honest answer. Or maybe I just don’t want to.

Sometimes they want to touch it. Sometimes they don’t even ask. They just do it. Are boundaries a thing anymore? If we’re family or friends, fine, whatever touch it if it matters that much to you. Otherwise, unless we’ve been intimate at least to the point that our tongues have touched, you might wanna keep your hands to yourself.

What’s the big deal? (As I proceed to make a big deal) It’s a simple beard on a simple man. It’s not a symbol of my masculinity or anything. I’m not exactly what one would call the “masculine ideal”. There shouldn’t even be a masculine ideal. It’s definitely not there to for strangers to make sexual comments to me, and yet it happens anyway. I’ve had both men and women make the kind of comments I’d never make towards anybody. Its just a thing that’s on my face. Ask questions if you want but do you all have to ask the same god damned thing?

Truthfully, there is an answer to this question but it’s kind of long winded and it’s very personal. Which is why I will now share it with the internet:

I started growing this in August 2016. I was grieving and depressed. Yeah, this is my grief beard, or at least it used to be. You don’t really set out to grow a grief beard, it just happens. You’re too busy being sad to care. And so it grows and it grows. Eventually someone says something to you about your wretched appearance and so you finally go to a barber and get it trimmed. Then you look at yourself and you think, “hey, I kind of look alright” and you start buying beard oil and other products that make you look even better! You start getting positive attention. You start feeling good about yourself and your appearance. You start to care. You start trying again. You cultivate a look that suits you. You realize you are attractive and that others are genuinely interested in you. What was once a symbol of grief becomes an essential part of your being. It supplements your newly found confidence quite nicely. You find yourself wanting to connect, to kiss, to entertain the idea of love again. It’s just part of you now, you can’t imagine yourself without it. It is no longer your grief beard. It is something else entirely.

So to answer your question, I started growing this two years ago.