Can balding grow on me?

I wake up, shivering in my too-thin bed sheets, staring back at the grotesque monstrosity in the mirror: my bald head, spick-and-span clean and shining with light.

Though that may be just a stereotypical, irrational nightmare for anyone else, for me, this is a matter of the utmost importance.

You see, I’ve always had a fear of balding. Balding seems to be hereditary in my family. My father’s father has only a few strands left on his head, and my mother’s parents wear wigs to hide their large bald spots. My parents, for that matter, constantly complain about their lack of hair follicles as well.

As a child, I used to pull at my hair for fun or when I was stressed out. The repeated plucking of my hair led to a decrease in the already sparse number of hair follicles on my head. I regretfully confess that my bald spot, whether I like to admit it or not, is steadfastly growing.

I’m known among my friends as “the junior who already has white hairs,” and, unfortunately, it’s the bitter truth. I have had white hairs dotting the back of my head for the past five years, and they have steadily grown in number. After some research, I found that early graying and whitening in hair is a recessive gene in my family, and fate would have it that I would possess it.

I’m not alone. Apparently, balding is a common problem among men. The Belgravia Centre in London states that 40 percent of men have noticeable hair loss by age 35, 65 percent by age 60 and 80 percent by age 80.

According to BuzzFeed’s recent video “Everything You Need to Know About Hair Loss,” many solutions are available to combat balding. Curious, I took a look at it and found many interesting —  although maybe not perfect — tips to slow balding.

Among the suggestions were keeping tabs on one’s hair loss — check — and research about where one’s hair loss might have originated from — double-check. However, this was not the main point of narrator David Dang, a professional hair stylist and trichologist.

The video actually surprised me quite a bit. It discussed accepting the new look and having confidence in one’s baldness. While they did mention the benefits in doing so, I simply cannot build up the courage to outright declare, “I am balding at age 16 and proud of it!”

Looking for other solutions, I browsed the internet until I found tons of hair-saving products, such as laserband hair products and special creams. Personally, though, I am not a fan of bathing my hair in red light or lathering it in sticky cream. Disillusioned by these implausible solutions, I decided to take matters into my own hands.

I’ve taken steps to adjust, and perhaps in time, I can  overcome my fear of balding. I don’t pull at my hair when I’m studying for my next calculus test, and I probably research about hair loss more than the average middle-age man does. Whatever I do about my balding problem, however, I know I can be comforted by the fact that balding isn’t some curse only applied to me; it’s an issue for many people around the world, and many people are striving to fix the issue. Maybe someday, a cure will mean people like me can take a pill and have all the hair we want as long as we want.