People judge you by your neck hair
Men's Grooming / Fitness Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
Some of us have a lot of it. Some of us have barely any at all. Some have more neck hair than “head hair.” But the one thing all men have in common despite social status, height, favorite NFL team or favorite member of the “A-Team” (Murdock for me) is the fire breathing demon of neck-hair. And what this article postulates is that you are limited by or succeed in spite of your own personal neck hair situation.
A close female friend of mine told me that she uses a guy’s neck hair as a gauge for how much back hair he would potentially have and that she was hitting at an 85% clip. Another female friend told me that if a guy doesn’t care about his neck hair, which is fully visible, imagine what the non-visible hair would look like. Put simply, if your neck hair is out of control, people automatically assume that your life is out of control.
Let’s look to popular culture for a few examples. In the move “Office Space,” Peter Gibbons’ neighbor Lawrence is a construction worker with a long mullet and handlebar moustache; those three things in concert confirm beyond a shadow of doubt that his neck hair is completely out of control. Can you imagine what his sink/toilet looks like? Now, let’s compare him to someone we all hate; Kourtney Kardashian’s boyfriend on “Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” Scott Disick. Do you think anyone has ever pointed out how close his last name is to what people think he actually is? Sure they have, Wisenheimer. But one thing you have to say is that he is impeccably groomed and probably has his neck hair removed via laser every couple weeks. And that is why he has a ton of money, a sweet car, and has impregnated a Kardashian that isn’t Khloe.
Still not convinced? Let’s turn to the world of sports. Before Pau Gasol got traded from the Grizzlies to the Lakers three seasons ago, he was on a bad team, in a boring town and besieged by neck hair that was visible from the upper deck. But once he was traded to the Lakers, his life changed. His hair is still scraggily and unkempt and his beard is equally non-conformist, but the neck hair is gone. Pau Gasol knows that’s what makes the difference between success and failure. He didn’t have to get rid of the “tussled” look completely, but by modifying via neck hair shave, he now looks “sophisticated” in the way of a movie producer or an agent. Not surprisingly, since getting his neck hair under control he has gone on to win two NBA titles and is now a productive member of society.
We either control our neck hair and control our lives, or our neck hair controls us and limits our social marketability. Oh sure, you can probably succeed in spite of it, like Ghengis Khan or Tom Jones, but let’s work smart guys, not hard. Just like the car you drive or if you have so much chest hair that there is no line between where your beard ends and the chest hair begins (like Andy/Steve Carell in “The 40 Year Old Virgin,” or NBA hall of famer Chris Mullin), the specter of neck hair looms large over all of us and has a direct hand in our fate.
If we were to put the neck hair problem that most men face into female terms, it would be like getting introduced to an otherwise hot woman who has enough upper lip hair to make Dennis Eckersley blush. And no matter how hot the rest of her is, or how interesting whatever she’s saying is, or how well dressed she is, you can’t help but focus on how those follicles of hair curve around her top lip into the corner of her mouth and become more noticeable. And you think to yourself, “Can’t she see that? Why doesn’t she just wax it? It would take five seconds.” Well fellas, that’s what they think when they see us and our overgrown neck hair. Don’t be the male version of the girl with too much upper lip hair.
The thing is, since most of us never even see our own neck hair, we don’t give it much thought. But from here on out, guys, just assume it looks awful at all times. And then, let the grooming/healing begin.
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