Beardo

I haven't shaved in a little over a week. It started as a bet - one of my coworkers and I started a beard pool with a $20 buy in that would be judged at the end of the month, with points being awarded for style and originality. I have light hair, so right now you might see me from across the room and think, "Hey, that guy looks normal." As you draw closer, though, you will slowly realize the awful truth and think "Ew. Gross. A beard."

I don't understand why someone would grow facial hair if not to earn capital, so I decided to examine some of the popular facial hairstyles and do some research as to why they exist.

According to a caption just above this fine fellow, on this foreign website, "Facial hair help the men either to express or conceal their look just after being stimulated by their instincts." Hmmm, sounds very primal. It's no wonder neanderthals are believed to have been rocking the full beard.

According to Wikipedia, male facial hair is often culturally associated with wisdom and virility, while mustaches are often associated with sexual perversion, serial killers, and law enforcement officers. If you see a man with a beard, you should ask him a question, but if you see a man with a mustache, you should probably get your children away from him, or, if he is wearing aviator sunglasses, give him a donut.

Jeffrey Dahmer is known for dismembering people and refrigerating them. He is NOTORIOUS, though, for his mustache.

In some serious cases, mustaches have been known to multiply like cancer so that they grow down and around the mouth, forming what is known in popular culture as a "fu man chu." This facial hairstyle is typical of men who have been inbred, and may also result from over consumption of Natural Light and/or Natural Ice. Fu man chu wearing men are responsible for the existence of the majority of battered women's shelters throughout the US. Their most notable achievements can be read about in the Darwin Awards.

The last facial hairstyle I came across is known as the the "door knocker" or "Van Dyke" and is allegedly used to disguise a weak jawline or add the illusion of length to a round face. I understand why it's called a door knocker, because if anyone wearing one of these ever knocked on my door, they'd be knocking for a long time. It's a shame more Jehovah's Witnesses don't have them.

Keep on knocking





After all of my research, I've concluded that men grow facial hair to look wise, to attract sexual prey, to go with their aviators, to keep people from answering the door, and to scare their wives into submission.

I've decided to shave tomorrow.