In order to prevent a discussion in Current Events I am bringing this here.

My take, baldness in men has never affected me in any way when it comes to the choice of a partner, either short or longterm.

When I was eighteen my boyfriend at that time had a hairline which was receding dramatically and he was already attempting to disguise the fact. I convinced him that it would be better to have his hair short so that people got used to his hair receding rather than have the wind giving the game away.

My son-in-law is one of the 'shaved head brigade', I must admit I would prefer him to grow it a little and just accept the inevitable.

As for 'rugs' and combovers, like most people that I have spoken to (actually ALL), I think toupees are going to attract jokes. I can remember a colleague at work turning up one day sporting a toupee, when he left the room we exploded with laughter. Fortunately he gave it up after a few weeks.

Gentlemen, we women, or at least most of us, just don't give a damn if your hair is receding or even if it has gone - you are you and your hair really doesn't matter at all.

There, that is my bit said. Now if you want to expand the thread to include other physical aspects, such as fat and thin feel free!

No, I have to say I never cared if men were bald, hairy, tall, short, thin, fat, black, white, young, old (well, the last couple within reason of course ). The thing that bothers me is when anyone (ie male or female) tries to pretend they're something they're not. As you've said, Sue, if you're going bald, getting fat or whatever, do it with style!

I had a friend whose head was clean and shiny from about half-way back when he was in his early 30s, but he insisted on growing the rest of his hair long. At least he kept it in a ponytail and didn't try to comb it to the front...he'd always had a thing for me and I just wasn't interested, but then he cut his hair quite short and I have to say he was much more attractive! But I do think it was as much about the changes which had happened inside his head to make him decide to cut his hair as how it made the outside of his head look that made him more appealing.

I must admit also to having a bit of a thing for shaved heads. Husband person is (of course!) gorgeous anyway, but there's something about him when the head's freshly mown. Then also I must admit that I often shave my head too - actually I'm getting towards decision time for this summer. The heat usually doesn't really get to me until around Christmas, and doing it is a great way to release tension and feel like you're starting again. I've heard that in many (African?) cultures women shave their heads if their husband dies, and I can really understand why.

Actually I'd be interested to know what you male-people (or others so-inclined) think about hair length in women - would that need another thread Sue?

My hair is shorter than most men's hair!

No additional thread required, feel free to comment on appearances in general, either sex.

As I helped to translate a book on hair transplant surgery, I learned more than I wanted to while doing it.

One thing I feel is that the way a man accepts his appearance is very important to the way others perceive him. If he carries it well, then others will find him attractive.
If it's a natural part of the person's appearance, it's fine, if the person fights it to the end, it looks obvious that they cannot accept themselves.

I need to qualify the rest of my post by first stating: If someone were the love of my life -it wouldn't matter if they were tall or short, bald or furry.

Now- just on the visual,superficial side: I really like men with hair. A friend of mine has the same curly, almost waist length auburn hair he's had since we were in junior high school.He works in a rather formal office setting, but somehow they have let him keep the hair! [ maybe it's not a big deal because he seldom has it out of the ponytail anyway] My son, up until he was eighteen, had beautiful dark brown hair [ also very long] and cut it off after graduation, since he was moving to Indiana where things are a little bit more provencial. I have to admit I got all misty eyed as I cut it...it had been part of him for so long that this seemed akin to an amputation of some kind.

My husband's hair was also thick,long and auburn when I first met him. I usually braided it for him, after it got long enough to.

Do you think it was the time my friends and I came of age? [ circa 1971] Or a geographic 'problem' [ that's the way my mother would phrase it!]

Oooer, someone mentioned hair transplants - don't even think of going there. The husband of a friend of mine was losing his hair when he was young so paid vast sums of money to have a hair transplant to hide the receding hairline. The transplant was a complete success, he still has hair in the transplanted area but it looks so stupid as he has lost all the hair around it! Er, tufty!

Go on men, if nature meant your hair to be thin or non-existent then live with it, you are just as lovable with no hair or just a little hair.

Thanks Sue.

Kt long hair on boys was very big when I was in my teens too (the eighties). Seems to have passed now from what I've seen. I must admit there's something about running your hands through long hair - someone else's or your own, doesn't really matter! That's the only reason I'm never sure about cutting my own - I like to play with it.

On women and hair, I have to say that I'm not a big fan of the 'Charlie's Angels' look that seems to be big at the moment. I think the flicks should stay back in the seventies where they belong!

I like guys with all types of hair, I guess.

My hubby darling is going bald. He's been going bald since I've known him. He's told me, he's been going bald since he was 20. No big deal, I don't care. He also had longish hair for a while, and his hair is almost coal black and curly, and I really liked that, too, but finally his hairline receded too far and the long hair looked strange, and he had to cut it short.

I came out of the bathroom a while back, after inspecting the silver twinkles I saw in the mirror and said, "My dear, your wife is going grey!" Without so much as a start his response was, "That's OK, your husband is going bald, so I guess we'll just do it together." Sadly, neither of us is 30 yet, but we sure did feel old that moment.

So, yeah, men with hair, men without hair... Yul Brynner... Hot bald guy. Sorry, but it must be said. He might have been one of the finest looking men of his generation, hair or no hair. Heck, I think I could safely say, as a person who's generation only barely overlapped his, that he is one of the finest looking men this century, all the Val Kilmers and Tom Cruises aside, and it is not in spite of his bald head, but partly because of it!

Just an interesting factoid: My sister has said that despite what society tends to teach us to the contrary, male pattern baldness is actually a turn-on on a more instinctive level because it indicates higher levels of testosterone and while women may not consciously make that connection, something in their physiology knows it, and likes it.

Big hair didn't do it for me in the 80s, and it sure doesn't do it for me now.
My husband is bald, and it doesn't bother me for one minute.
My father is also bald, and I nearly fell down the last time I saw him, because he'd finally had his dreadful comb-over cut off. I thought he looked great and told him so. He thanked me, said it was done out of curiosity and that he would likely grow it back. I told him that my vote was not for growing it back. It's his head and he will do what he wants.
Long or short hair doesn't really matter to me, as long as it's neat. When I first met my husbad he had hair, and it was long, straggly and very un-brushed. I much prefer his bald head to that.
My son is now doing the long, unkept look. There are some days (when it's just been washed) when I thing he looks great, and others when it looks like the dog's breakfast.
I think something is finally getting through to him, because he's asking more often to go to the hairdresser's for a cut and a thinning.

OK, time for me to 'fess up! Bald, hirstute, tall, short, fat, thin, old, young (but not too young, or too old) - who cares, so long as they are breathing they are fine by me! However, I would prefer them to have their own teeth.

I knew it! Someone from Indiana would see that last post and take issue...

I stand corrected then, Moo!

I find this topic to be quite interesting and informative. I guess as a man with a full head of hair....98% gray...and having all my teeth...being six feet two inches and 230 pounds..yes slightly overweight to some...relativley attractive...or so I have been told..it is shocking to find out that I am not what every woman wants !!!

It is more a case of what is in the inside, looks don't count for a lot really. Give me a man who makes me laugh any day over a dreamboat, if he makes me laugh AND is a dreamboat, well wow and wow again.

Husband No. 1 had long hair which I braided for him every night. It looked good on him and I loved it. Husband No. 2 is going bald and I love it, too. Just like most everyone else's feelings on this, it doesn't make a difference to me if a man is going bald or not, just don't try to cover baldness with the silly comb-over. It doesn't fool anyone.

Oh, and another hot bald guy: Patrick Stewart.

Absolutely agreed. Someone who is kind hearted, funny and smart gets my vote every time over pretty boy GQ types. And as Sue stated, any good looks on top of those qualifications are simply 'gravy!'

My husband has black wavy hair that I love. He is really getting grey around the temple area and I love that as well. I must admit I think a man with very short hair or bald/balding can be very attractive. I must also admit, however, that long hair on a man is not something that I'm drawn to.

My husband is sort of an odd breed (at least as far as I was taught) in that he prefers short hair on women. I heard the 'men love long hair on a woman' routine so often that it was a shock to me that he prefers a shorter doo. He also doesn't have a hair colour preference ( I was also always told that men prefer blondes.) Anyway, he's easy to please. Good thing.

Oh yes, and now to the point of the whole thread, I like men. Simple as that. (Mind you they must be decent, hardworking, generous, have a sense of humour, like kids, be romantic....etc. etc. )

Well, I agree with the majority that I like the "natural" look - if a man is naturally bald, or has a receding hairline, so be it.

Nothing looks worse than a man trying to disguise baldness with a combover (especially when it flaps in the breeze) or a hairpiece. Not keen on hair transplants either because they always do them in tufts in rows - doesn't look natural at all.

I like men's hair to be short and neat. I'm not a big fan of long hair. To be honest, I think long hair, loose or in a ponytail, is not a look that suits very many men. There are only a few on whom it looks good. The older the man, the more ridiculous it tends to look.

I don't like the shaved look very much either. Again, it only looks good on a few. I don't see why men want to go around looking like cancer victims - that's what it reminds me of, every time I see it.

However, it's not that big of a deal to me. If I was in the position of being available, a man's choice of hairstyle would be unlikely to put me off if he was a nice guy. The sort of thing that would put me off would be failure to keep his hair clean and combed.

With respect to other issues (tall, short, fat, thin, black, white etc), I've no strong feelings about these. In my younger days, I went out with all sorts.

I remember an incident when I was teaching high school. I walked into the classroom one day and my year 8 girls were discussing Carolyn's dilemma - which boy to go out with. She asked my advice "Oh miss, David is SO good-looking, I like being seen out with him, but Peter is SO nice, he has a better personality. Which one should I choose?" They all laughed when I said to choose the one with personality on the grounds that, in twenty years time, they'd both be bald and have pot bellies.

Oh, I have to come in despite my better judgement...
I've said somewhere already it took me years to get used to being 5'5'', and then my hair started going, and I had the rest of eternity to get used to that.
The number of small ads where women mention 'tall' and even worse 'over 5'9'' or so' made me pretty neurotic when I spent some years trying them, and only having seen men shorter and balder than me with very good 'track records' did I realise that whatever women thought they wanted, in reality they could accept who they actually met rather than people they'd imagined that didn't really exist.

However, every so often a woman has told me she'd fancy me if I was taller. Two months in therapy after each one... (well, it would have helped if I had).

David, I have to say that if a woman tells you that she would fancy you if you were taller is not a woman you should have wasted your time with. In my opinion, if a woman has to have someone tall to be with, she has some issues with herself that she needs to deal with. I realise that people have their preferences, likes and dislikes, but if they have to limit their choices to "short", "tall", or whatever, they lose out on the chance of finding someone they could truly be happy with. I myself am attracted to shorter men, but I had dated men of all sizes, heights, hair color, with or without hair, etc., but fell in love with my husband "as he is" and not with just how he looked.

Clarasue, I agree with you. I have a very good friend who's a model and actress in LA. She's 5'11" and almost flat out refuses to date any man that is shorter than she is. She's someone worth "wasting" time on, I will say that, but her reasons for not wanting a short man are exclusively self-conscious ones. She had a hard time when she was growing up because she was so tall, and anything that makes her feel even taller is a sore subject, so she just makes sure that her boyfriends don't look like shrimps compared to her. (Lucky for her, when she was a bridesmaid in my wedding I had a 6'7" groomsman to walk down the aisle with her. )

My husband of almost 20 years is 5'7" tall, and bald.
He's a wonderful husband and father, and that's far more important than height and hair.

Two enthusiastic thumbs up to the brave men who have contributed to this thread.

Now let's hear from the rest of you who have snuck in to look and then crept out again!