COLUMN: I prefer my men bearded
Beards are sexy.
What most of my fellow females might consider awkward or unattractive, I actually prefer.
Tom Selleck, Abraham Lincoln, Al Borland, my high school ecology teacher — all men with whom I famously associate facial hair. On almost every individual, I’ve always considered it to be a plus.
Give me a name and a beard (short of reality star Spencer Pratt’s flesh-colored stubble) and I’ll likely give you two thumbs up.
In high school, my first serious boyfriend said he grew facial hair to look like Edward Norton in “The Italian Job,” before going back to a clean face after we broke up. Deep down, I was under the impression he really grew it for me.
It turns out that first boyfriend’s patchy goatee was only the beginning, as every guy I’ve dated since had facial hair. After talking to some of them recently, I was disappointed to learn not one of them grew or maintained facial hair for me, like I'd thought.
Here I was for years hoping it was always a small, unspoken gesture in these relationships. With the loss of that notion was the loss of part of why I thought I liked it to begin with.
The more important question to me has become, if not for their ladies, why?
My fascination, I thought, could've started with my father, who grew a mustache straight out of high school to look older. He grows a beard every winter, and even as his dark hair has turned gray, it’s still a prominent facial feature I can’t imagine him without.
I did what any journalist should and I asked him about it.
He pointed to George Clooney, David Letterman and Conan O’Brien, who have all had beards. He said it probably began with them for the same reason it did him — growing facial hair was something to try.
Still, that’s the point. For most men, letting their whiskers grow was an experiment or temporary. This didn’t answer why in about 30 years not even my mother has ever seen my father without at least a 'stache, and it didn’t answer if his lifetime commitment to it was part of the reason I like facial hair — like she does.
At the end of our beard talk Tuesday, my dad finally pointed to Walt Disney, a man who had a mustache his whole career but banned most facial hair within his corporation.
He compared Disney’s reasons to how Napoleon’s hatred of the British spurred him to instruct the French to ride on the right side of the road, saying, “Some leaders do things just to demonstrate they’re leaders.”
Whether it be to prove their masculinity or because of mere laziness, a guy's reason doesn’t matter. Why question a good thing?
