In a city as stylish as ours, I sometimes worry that I’m not quite cutting it. Sure, my whole jeans, plain T-shirt and Converse trainers thing is a practical uniform against the elements, but it doesn’t exactly get the ladies’ pulses racing and it certainly doesn’t command much respect in the workplace. One day, a few weeks ago, I decided I had to do something to sort out my look. Something drastic. But what?
As my female colleagues are always telling me, accessorising is everything. Sadly, however, I look about as natural clutching a Louis Vuitton satchel as a penguin does riding a dune buggy. Still, there’s one stylish add-on that’s not only exclusive to guys, it also never goes out of stock and, best of all, is completely free. I began to think about growing a beard.
I couldn’t just go rushing into things willy-nilly, of course. I started studying Indian men on the bus with their handsome moustaches, and local folk with their crisp, laser-edged stubble. Like any aspirational gentleman, what started out as quiet admiration soon became full-on, apocalyptic jealousy. I simply had to have one. Thankfully, unlike so many other symbols of masculinity – the six-pack, the thousand-yard stare – it turns out that a healthy facial bush is simple enough to achieve. There’s no real effort on the grower’s part – it’s a simple case of waiting patiently and forgetting to shave, with maybe an hour or two set aside to practise chin stroking techniques and wise expressions.
In a little under a month I was in business. I still wore the same overgrown-student-on-laundry-day threads as before, but my look had definitely taken on a certain edge. No longer was I prompted for ID when visiting bars, the boss began to ask my opinion on crucial matters and one day, on my lunch break, I even earned a wink from an attractive woman (although further investigation revealed she actually had something in her eye).
All too soon, though, I realised that I was well out of my depth. As it turns out, beards make your face really, really hot. Despite its dapperness, my hairy adventure had also granted me a level of facial insulation equivalent to having an adult sloth clinging on to my earlobes. Fine if you’re on an expedition to the South Pole, less so if you’re ambling down Hamdan Street to buy cable ties in 40-something degree heat.
So, like the resentful fashionista unable to make peace with her bone-crunching Jimmy Shoes (or whatever they’re called), I reluctantly conceded that the beard and I were going to have to part ways. I charged my clippers, ran my fingers through my bristly mane one last time, bid it a solemn farewell and that was that.
Except it wasn’t. Because then came the beard’s revenge. Though I could now once again feel the breeze against my cheeks, I’d also uncovered a tan line so severe that it looked as though the upper and lower halves of my face were of completely different ethnicities. The only solution? Grow another beard and endure the whole horrible, beautiful, sweaty cycle again. I really should’ve just bought a nice shirt.
