7 ways that hair loss impacts your social life

By Mosh
minute read

People socialising

Throughout the history of the world, no man has ever been happy about losing his hair. No one has ever cheered about their thinning locks and shiny scalp.

Our appearances are an important part of our identities, especially the features of our face and head. Those characteristics become the cornerstone of who we are. We aren’t comfortable when those characteristics change, especially when we don’t find the new features appealing.

Unfortunately, the effects of hair loss go beyond your head. It can change you as a person, including the way you interact and socialise with other people.

Hair loss can change you as a person, including the way you socialise with other people.

Let’s talk about some ways hair loss affects your social life. As you read, honestly ask yourself if you exhibit any of these behaviours.

1. You Stop Exercising or Participating in Sports

If you conceal your hair loss with hats or clever styling, you probably avoid any situation that might disrupt your appearance. You never want to be in the position where you have to sweat or swim near other people, and you certainly don’t participate in close-contact activities like football or martial arts.

You might even stop going to the gym because you feel silly wearing a hat while you work out. Plus, there are a lot of young, attractive people in the gym who make you feel old and unwelcome in a place like that. The crazy part about this is that people don’t care what you look like at the gym, but you’re self-conscious anyway.

If you stop exercising, not only will you meet fewer people who share your interests, you’ll also be forced to exercise alone or at home, or not at all. Please don’t sacrifice your health for your pride. Besides, it’s important to have proper nutrition to get the best results from your hair loss treatment.

2. You Avoid Situations Where You Can’t Wear a Hat

If you like to hide your thin or bald spots with a casual baseball cap or knit hat, you probably avoid places and events where hats aren’t appropriate, such as…

  • Weddings
  • Funerals
  • Formal parties
  • Restaurants
  • Night clubs
  • Work lunches

It’s easy to convince other people (and yourself) that you “just don’t like dressing up. But the truth is more likely that you don’t like going to places where you’re expected to focus on your appearance when you never think you’ll look good enough.

Skipping these activities can seriously impair your social life. Eventually people in your life will assume you don’t like those kinds of events and just stop inviting you. If you ever decide one day to abandon your hat so you can participate in these kinds of things, you’ll have to convince people to start inviting you again.

3. You Avoid Places with Unflattering Lighting

One interesting thing about losing your hair is that you become an expert at lighting. You examine your hair a million times in every reflective surface you pass, especially in your own bathroom. You are acutely aware of how different lighting affects your hair’s appearance.

You know to avoid places with harsh lighting. You gauge the lighting in a room to decide where to stand. You prefer lamps to overhead lights because they leave the top of your head in shadow. Sunlight and fluorescent lights are your biggest enemy.

This has a subtle, but powerful effect on your social life. You might love the beach, but refuse to go with other people because the light exposes your hair loss. You might pass on dinner with friends because they chose a restaurant with a bright dining room. You might want to sit next to the cute girl at the bar, but the light over that seat is too unflattering to bear.

4. You Just Don’t Want to be Seen by Other People

It’s no secret that our society associates hair with attractiveness. We think physically attractive people have better internal qualities. Being beautiful just makes life easier, which is why going bald is such a big deal for guys.

Yes, bald can be beautiful, and going bald doesn’t mean you’re unattractive, but that’s a tough distinction to make when your hair starts to disappear.

Losing your hair can make you feel ugly and unwanted. It can make you feel vulnerable like you’re now on the outside of the cool group. It can make you want to avoid people entirely and shut yourself away from society.

Furthermore, a lot of guys have a hard time dealing with feelings of jealousy. They see dudes with lots of hair living full, active lives and assume it’s the hair that lets them do all those things. “I would behave just like that,” they say, “If I only had hair.”

So you avoid people. You focus on solitary hobbies and convince yourself you’re an introvert, even if you crave attention and socialisation. You stand in the back of the room so no one can see you, and you don’t do anything that would draw attention to yourself.

This type of behaviour is especially common for guys whose friends like to tease them. If a balding guy knows his peers will make fun of his hair loss (that he’s already sensitive about), he’ll avoid those people.

5. You Don’t Want to Meet New People

Hair is one of the first things we notice when we meet new people. We tend to judge people’s inner characteristics based on their outer characteristics, and you know other people are doing the same to you.

So you avoid situations where you might meet someone new. You limit yourself to the same people you’ve always hung out with – people who knew you before you started losing your hair. You figure your old friends have to accept you, but new people will dismiss you because of your hair loss.

Obviously, it’s unlikely someone who will reject you out of hand because of your hair loss. But avoiding new people is easier than taking that chance.

6. You Act Differently in Social Settings

If you’re losing your hair, you’ve probably noticed some changes in your behaviour. You’re not as outgoing, less likely to strike up conversations with new people, and you prefer not to be the centre of attention. These are very common changes in guys with hair loss.

Why does this happen? Because hair loss erodes your self-esteem.

62% of guys with hair loss say it affects their self-esteem. They think less of themselves and assume others do as well. They feel humiliated and defeated by social settings, even before they start!

You might find yourself spending time with other balding guys because you feel like you belong. That’s actually a healthy behaviour. It’s not unusual to associate ourselves with people who understand our problems. Just make sure you aren’t doing it because you feel undeserving of the attention of non-balding people.

7. You start worrying about your professional advancement

For some guys going bald is no big deal. For others, the first sign of thinning hair or a receding hairline can shatter confidence and be a source of constant angst. Will this shape how people see me? Might this affect me professionally?

When it comes to securing a job, it is often trickier for balding men as well. While some studies have shown that balding men earn more on average, many men attribute a lack of employability to baldness.

Us blokes can be sensitive and highly attuned to physical appearance. The impact going bald has on your social and professional life probably has as much to do with a loss of confidence as it does your physical appearance.

Nevertheless, There is Hope

Does any of that describe you? Do you exhibit any of those behaviours? If so, wouldn’t it be great if you could put all that behind you and get back to your life?

Modern medicine has mostly ignored hair loss as a real problem with tangible effects on men (and women) all over the world. Admittedly it’s not as big of a problem as, say, heart disease, cancer, or diabetes, but we could alleviate a lot of suffering in the world if the medical community made a real attempt to cure hair loss.

Fortunately, science has given us some hope. You have treatment options available to halt your hair loss and recover some of your hair. It requires patience and consistency, but you don’t have to feel like a shut-in forever. If balding is bothering you, give our hair loss treatment program a go. You might just feel a whole lot better about yourself.

Tags: hair featured