5:00PM
I’ve been growing a quarantine beard. I haven’t trimmed it since we’ve been in quarantine, now, who knows, approaching two months.
In the beginning of this lockdown, I thought about trimming it as normal, maintaining it short and maintaining my look. I wanted to focus on personal care even while stuck in the house and stay sharp.
And then, for some reason, I decided to let it go. It wasn’t because I thought it would particularly look good. I think I thought it would be fun. To give me a visual reminder of how long we’ve been in quarantine. To act sort of like the beards the hockey players wear when they get into the playoffs. Plus it would be fluffy.
Over the last day, I’ve posted a few photos to my friends online and have received quite the range of comments. Some girls laughed. My guy friends mostly loved it and told me to keep growing it. One girl, with whom I have barely spoken over the last few months, sent me a message, and of course I was excited to read it. This is a girl I really care about and miss dearly. She said, “Honestly, it looks ugly,” with a vomiting emoji.
It hurt to read that. Still hurts to think about it. But not sure why. My intention wasn’t for it to look beautiful, for it to enhance my sexiness or my appearance in the eyes of others. That’s not what I wanted it to do. And yet, maybe I still didn’t want it to look so bad that someone I’m attracted to thinks that it’s ugly and worthy of a vomiting emoji. Perhaps she didn’t intend so much with the emoji, maybe it was more of a gut reaction. Maybe she couldn’t find an emoji that approximated disgust without being way-over-top disgust.
I think I do things for myself, but still with intended reactions from people. I expected laughter, I expected cheers, I expected people to overlook how it doesn’t look good and to see the fun in it. To see the playfulness. Maybe she didn’t see that, maybe she was hoping to see me looking differently—all toned and fit from exercising and well trimmed from having time to groom (although not having barbershops open)—I don’t know. Maybe she did see the playfulness and I’m reading way too much into just a four-word message.
Tying it back into the theme of the day—maybe this is again, one reason for secrecy: fear that showing something will change our perspectives on it. I wonder if I’m starting to question my own belief in this beard, in this experiment to grow until we go back to normal, this journey into seeing how long it can get.
Maybe it means not that I should be more private and run away from conversation, but that I should be more open, tell her how it made me feel, talk about other aspects of it, ask her about how it made her feel, and see it as an opportunity to be more open, not more closed.
I’ll probably go down that path. I feel better when I’m open, even if it sometimes hurts.
5:10PM
