Day 1 - A Close Shave!

As the time approached for my last shave I searched around for a sign - a sign that should indicate how my charity beardquest would go. As I trudged home on thursday, getting increasingly irritated by the impractical union of a million valetines bouquets and rush hour, it seemed as if I would not get the positive sign i had been hoping for. Hordes of clean shaven suited types were being gazed at lovingly by their identikit blonde girlfriends clutching their roses/balloons/novelty teddy bears with complete disregard for their proximity to the faces of people just trying to get home. The evidence seemed to support the findings of research i had conducted earlier in the day.

In an attempt to guage female opinion of beards I conducted a straw poll of women in my office, asking if they prefered men to be clean shaven or if they liked unshaven men. Of 20 respondants, the results were very close with 11 prefering a clean shaven man to 9 who prefered an unshaved gent (55% to 45%). What was slightly worrying for me as I embarked on my beard growing adventure was that nearly all the 9 who preferred an unshaven man clarified that they did not like a full beard. I also am given to understand that at least 2 of the nine may have responded differently should "women" have been identified as an alternative preference.

Then, amidst the fog of vomit-inducing, overly commercialised valentines "unpleasantness", that served only to confirm my fear that a beard may make me a pariah among women, I got my sign.

A man, a bearded man, a man with a giant beard and a waving mane blowing in the wind who looked for the world like Karl Marx (a resemblence that probably served to highlight his uniqueness, seeing as he was framed by everything that was wrong with capitalism.) I drew hope from him, not because he was flanked by women (he wasn't) but, while most of obviously lonely commuters regarded the odious public displays of affection around them with barely concealed disgust, he seemed not to notice anything at all. There was a serene aura of obliviousness around him, everything that was going on around him was of no interest to him, everything he cared about was in the magazine from which he would not remove his glinting eyes. It was a magazine entitled "Railway Modeller." He looked like a man who cared about one thing, the very singular activity of model railways, sure he was hideous to women and human contact was probably an alien a concept to him - but did he care? Well I am not sure, he may have done, but I would like to think he didn't. I mean "Railway Modeller" could have concealed a battered copy of "Barely legal" and he probably only had a beard to soak up the tears when he cries himself to sleep - but that is hardly a romantic image.

As I stared, longing him to see my unrepentant beard-lust and take me under his wing as some sort of model railway apprentice. I knew that I should follow his lead, the ultimate anarchist, a man for whom social convention is something that happens to other people, a man whose beard is a shield to the petty concerns of others a comforting cushion in which he withdraws to dream about model railways unmolested by the hobby-hindering side effects of friendship.

I now approach my bearded future without fear. Tonight I shave knowing that tomorrow I will be slightly more attractive to 55% of the women in my office.

Check out Railway modeller at http://www.peco-uk.com/Publications/RailwayM_this.htm