As a not-bald person I have no experience here so I'm curious if you would mind expanding on what you feel like the severe, negative impacts have been?

I’ve been called names because of it. Pretty sure it contributed to bullying and work place harassment at my last job. I’ve been told people literally do not believe me because of my looks. The women that rejected me based on my hairline are the least of it.

Sorry to hear that.

I’ve been told people literally do not believe me because of my looks.

FWIW I've been told the same thing when I wore a beard, and have heard the same of other people for other physical traits.

For me, the biggest impact is health. I was recently diagnosed with a very benign skin cancer, but I dearly love open air driving, so trying to figure out how to enjoy my Jeep while not inviting melanoma is tricky.

Isn't hair relatively low SPF? So wouldn't applying sunscreen solve that problem?

From http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/09/12/2362010.ht...

> Overall, the researchers found hair offered a protection factor ranging from 5 to 17, which is significantly lower that the average sunscreen, which offers a protection factor of 30.

Quite probably.

Since I was a kid I've hated sunscreen so I do my best to find other solutions. Or pretend it's not a problem.

Yep sunscreen is very nasty stuff. Wish it wasn’t such a pain to work with and wear.

At the very least, you can live knowing that you ended up where you are in life because of who you are, not because of something you pretended to be. I have a techy friend from Harvard class of 2006, but he didn't want to be thought of as a nerd when he got there, so he pretended to be an alpha banker type instead.

Well, fast forward 10 years, and no one bought the alpha schtick, and he missed his chance to be a billionaire working with Zuckerberg.

You never know how positively the world is going to react to you being comfortable and confident with yourself.

> At the very least, you can live knowing that you ended up where you are in life because of who you are

that's only reassuring if he's in a good place...

I’ve been through many hells.

Half of it is shallow society value. But half is a sign of body degradation, very few aren't distressed by that