Balding man fails to convince world he’s fine with it

Hair News: Balding man Peter Rate, 35, spoke of his frustration yesterday at failing to convince other people he’s fine with it. He really is.

“I was in the barber’s the other day and I made a quip about how it wasn’t going to take him very long because there wasn’t much left.”

“The barber put his hand on my shoulder, looked at me in the mirror and said ‘don’t worry about it, mate – it’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

“The more I told him I didn’t care, the worse it sounded. To complete the humiliation, when I went to pay him the £10, he said ‘let’s just call it £7.50’.”

Rate, who started thinning in his twenties and now has the begginings of a monk-like tonsure at the back as well as a visible scalp on top, says that’s ‘a typical reaction’.

“As soon as I tell them I don’t care, they’re sure that I do.”

“My Dad was bald. I knew it was coming. It’s natural, and I really don’t mind. I really, really don’t.”

Bald men have long propagated the myth that they are more virile, but Rate says he doesn’t have time for such flag-waving, as he doesn’t need ‘psychological compensation’. So why does he wear a hat all the time?

“That is an entirely practical measure,” says Rate. “My head gets cold. Or sunburned. It needs protection.”

So why indoors, especially at parties or in the pub?

At that point the interview was terminated.

Story: Jasper Gibson