Anyone else feel like facebook is a humiliating look into your past?

[overzealousfollicles]

Let me start off by saying, I don't really like facebook. However, I still use it to keep in touch with people. I have a lot of friends from high school, university, work, family etc...and I feel like facebook is an awful window into my past of glorious hair!

I started using facebook in 2007 when I was 17 with a magnificent mane of hair. Started losing my hair around 21 and I just find it kind of funny / depressing to go through old photos. My hair isn't too terrible these days with finasteride and etc, but it's obviously noticeable that it's changing and in a lot of my recent pictures I'm wearing hats and etc.

Aside from me personally, facebook exists as something that people can look up your profile and see your whole life in an instant. I always get the feeling people definitely notice the regression of my hair if they go through my profile or see new pictures added. I love staying connected with people and having pictures of fun nights up and etc, but damn, it's just kinda disheartening to look through old photos and see things change so rapidly. I consider myself better looking, in better shape, and all around more confident than I was when I was 17 - 18...except for one glaring problem.

Social media can be great, but its sorta bringing me down these days.

Anyone else feel similarly?

 

[resu]

It's awful from all view points, seeing people always happy, at parties or vacation, with the shared profile pics kissing or hugging, sets standards and expectations too high. Seeing people with better hair profile after profile enjoying life while I dread my hair loss isn't exactly good for my moral so I don't use it all.

 

[overzealousfollicles]

It's awful from all view points, seeing people always happy, at parties or vacation, with the shared profile pics kissing or hugging, sets standards and expectations too high. Seeing people with better hair profile after profile enjoying life while I dread my hair loss isn't exactly good for my moral so I don't use it all.

Yeah I hear you, man. It's actually getting overpowering. Whenever I see a random guy in the street (I live in London...big city, lots of people), I automatically look at their hair and either stare in envy or (if they're balding) just think..."poor bastard". Same with facebook. Can't get it out of my head!

 

[kirk]

I fell ya bro. I started losing it at about the same age, and man did I ever have some 'glorious' hair (lol). Hair loss has had a devastating effect on my entire social life, not just facebook. I find myself looking at other guys hair first thing as well. If they are like I was, they have no idea how lucky they are.

What is you regimen if you don't mind?

 

[der29]

balding is humiliation itself.

 

[VeprSuper]

I call it The Devil's Notebook and refuse to use it.

 

[swingline747]

I work in tech so I do not have facebook, I do not use twitter, I locked down and hid the mandatory attempt to force me into social media called Google +.

The handful of friends I want to have I know personally and if I need to get in touch without calling I email or use the push to talk app Voxer. If you have a smartphone Voxer is the BEST way to communicate. I implore ANYONE with a facebook to cancel their page and get their friends to, you have no idea how your info is really being used, who is able to actually get into that account and even when locked who looks at it. You have a job interview or apartment application..... Im looking at your facebook and if there is ANYTHING I dont like I don't call you back. If its locked then I know there is stuff you dont want me to see and I dont call you back.

I see you don't have facebook and I know you are a pretty decent person who isnt involved in the garbage "hey look at me" world and probably works hard and is somewhat respectful. Plus everytime I say "I dont have facebook" I get the preverbial "thats awesome, Ive been meaning to cancell mine" (with the sad eye contact rolls away"

 

[kirk]

+1 to you swingline. I like your opt out philosophy

 

[overzealousfollicles]

I fell ya bro. I started losing it at about the same age, and man did I ever have some 'glorious' hair (lol). Hair loss has had a devastating effect on my entire social life, not just facebook. I find myself looking at other guys hair first thing as well. If they are like I was, they have no idea how lucky they are.

What is you regimen if you don't mind?

Yea totally agree man. I've been on finasteride since 21, save a few months when I was 23 which I regret everyday, because it took my hair from "very difficult to tell I'm balding at all" to "I need to style and comb my hair just right to make it not noticeable...even though it still probably is". I also use a shampoo / conditioner specifically designed for thinning hair called "Nioxin". It works great filling and thickening up my thin hair. I have "diffuse pattern alopecia" so my hair is just thin all over. My hairline is still pretty much intact, the problem spots are right behind my hairline and at my crown.

I used Rogaine when I was 21 - 22 and it worked great, I moved countries last year and keep meaning to get some more but haven't gotten around to it. Maybe I'll order some right now actually. I also just recently ordered Nizoral after hearing about it here...hoping it helps okay. I also use "Caboki" and have just ordered some "Toppik" hair fibres, works great for concealment.

What about you? Any tips?

- - - Updated - - -

I work in tech so I do not have facebook, I do not use twitter, I locked down and hid the mandatory attempt to force me into social media called Google +.

The handful of friends I want to have I know personally and if I need to get in touch without calling I email or use the push to talk app Voxer. If you have a smartphone Voxer is the BEST way to communicate. I implore ANYONE with a facebook to cancel their page and get their friends to, you have no idea how your info is really being used, who is able to actually get into that account and even when locked who looks at it. You have a job interview or apartment application..... Im looking at your facebook and if there is ANYTHING I dont like I don't call you back. If its locked then I know there is stuff you dont want me to see and I dont call you back.

I see you don't have facebook and I know you are a pretty decent person who isnt involved in the garbage "hey look at me" world and probably works hard and is somewhat respectful. Plus everytime I say "I dont have facebook" I get the preverbial "thats awesome, Ive been meaning to cancell mine" (with the sad eye contact rolls away"

I definitely agree with you swingline. I keep sensitive information off facebook as much as I can. I don't really mind random pictures of me up that aren't compromising for work, school or anything else. It really is a generational thing for me. The only reason I got facebook in the first place is my friends essentially forced me to sign up, they actually signed up for me funny enough. I felt sucked into the social media world. I don't use twitter, instagram, or any of that other bull****. Facebook for me is something that exists to keep me in touch with old friends who I otherwise wouldn't. But 95 % of the **** I see on there is absolute bull****.

Funny thing is when I was in high school / university, people considered you weird for not having facebook. Can you believe that? "Oh you don't have facebook? Well that's weird." Uh...ok. Makes perfect sense.

 

[VeprSuper]

In tech for 20 years. All of these sites have security like swiss cheese and the owners couldn't care less about your privacy. Swingline speaks truth.

 

[uncomfortable man]

Totally unrelated but I didn't want to start a new thread. So this new girl at my work today is at the checkout a few spaces down. I heard a few guys introducing themselves. So when I had a free moment I went up to her to introduce myself and welcome her to our store and everything about her body language and facial expressions read repulsion. She rushed the entire interaction as if to just push me away. I was pretty offended to say the least. All I wanted to do was introduce myself and say hi innocently and she completely brushed me off very rudely. She practically reached for her pepper spray.
I think a big part of the problem is that women (particularly under a certain age) think that everyone is trying to hit on them all the time. They literally perceive the world as one big game of "would I **** him?" Hmm, I just have to keep telling myself that people are stupid morons and not take these things to heart.

 

[Primo]

This is why I never go out of my way to be nice to really hot girls and am at best indifferent. I find, if you talk to them like sht and make them actually earn your socially niceities, they have much more respect for you and realise your not some fawning walkover or one of the millions of creepy, sleazebags who try to chat them up all the time.

I'm by nature a very polite and courteous person, but I find whenever I take this tack with young girls they just assume I'm some pathetic, walkover, who's trying to hit on them. Even when I had a full head of hair, I was never anything but nice and polite to all girls and it got absolutely nowhere for years. It was only when I got to nw3 at 22 that I learned not to respect women "too much" and had 100 x more success in that department. Sad but true.

You have to remember these girls get hit on all the time, so it's important to distinguish yourself from the thousands of other slimy, sleazeballs out there, but I agree with you, there is still definitely some ego involved too with lots of these girls, which is exactly why I have no qualms talking to them like sht and neither should any other guy.

I'm sorry to hear of your experience UCMan it definitely struck a chime with what I've experienced, both before and after hairloss.

 

[Quantum Cat]

yeah me too - I've noticed that if you just informally talk to most girls - just being friendly with no intention of wanting to date them - they automatically assume you're trying to hit on them and rudely brush you off. strangley it seems to be the uglier girls who do this more often - they must have high opinions of themselves


as for Facebook, don't get me started. It was great at first but now my feed has turned into nothing more than the same few self-absorbed egocentrics who think everyone wants to know about every small detail of their lives.

you get the ones who endlessly go on about how fantastic their life is in an attempt to make everyone else jealous

the ones who are eternally looking for attention and sympathy

the ones who endlessly post articles about subjects they're interested in, assuming that everyone on their friends list must also be interested in the same things.

are people so-unself-aware? Do they not realise how awful they're coming across to all these people on their friends list, including the extended family members, the work colleagues, the old school friends they haven't spoken to for years?

the sad thing is, FB has shown some people who I thought I liked in a different light. I read someone say that 'Facebook makes you dislike your own friends' - and I think it's true

 

[I.D WALKER]

Yes I agree overall to the aforesaid sentiments regarding Facebook. It's a cheap and easy means for attention deprived and needy individuals to inflate or showboat their mediocre self-interests. I believe it's more or less another extension of the growing reality t.v. subculture. Trivial, unworldly "want to be's," who seem to be at peace with their own flagrant state of arrested development as well as wholly oblivious to their delusions grandiose. Harsh words I know, but oftentimes that is a side effect of truth.

 

[VeprSuper]

Good point, Walker. It's all about faking what you are instead of working for it these days. The US is doomed imho.

 

[The Far Side]

The thing I need to avoid with facebook is looking at the people I went to school with and seeing if they're in the same boat as me yet...

"nope still the only weirdo"

 

[I.D WALKER]

In a way I'm quite relieved I've already experienced the initial shock of hair loss. I still strive for healthier tactics to cope with it in order to help prevent the excessive and obsessive preoccupation that I developed from it and to which incredulously persists in the forefront of my mind to this very day. This is the male pattern baldness sufferer's classic daily struggle. Yes during the early period of my confrontation with male pattern baldness I could have done things differently or rather more intelligently to aggressively and maybe even more successfully combat it. Maybe I just wasn't mentally/emotionally mature or sophisticated enough to deal with it more responsibly. I know I cannot change my past or any part of it.., I'ld be lying if I claimed my demoralizing experience with male pattern baldness has made me a better or stronger person today because that part of my life continues to haunt and taunt me. I do know I would never want to revisit or relive that part of my life ever again.

 

[karankaran]

When i was in undergrad, we had no Facebook or it was there but not popular. I started balding the year i came on Facebook.

But given the point here that how a look in the past is humiliating, YES YES YES it is. When i was in undergrad, i had hair as dense as a girl. it was so lush and so .... well i better not think about it. it hurts.

 

[mikeyt311]

facebook is dumb. i could care less what people i hardly even know anymore are doing every second of their life. i talk to the people i wanna talk to on my phone or in person.

 

[HairMagician]

Sup, new to posting, but a long time lurker. I've noticed since my hairloss kicked into overdrive this year, I simply haven't been on Fakebook. I rarely used it anyway, but I recently logged in to get some friends' numbers so I can keep in touch with them offline (and possibly close my account). I would be a ****ing liar if I said I didn't have a sinking feeling in my stomach seeing my profile pic (which I hadn't bothered to change for a few years) making me look like a super handsome Norwood -1.

If you are in a negative mindset (as some of us are-- due to balding), it ****ing sucks seeing everyone enjoying life while feeling you are unable to do so. Sometimes my hairloss doesn't bother me so much and I enjoy life just fine, but sometimes it feels really devastating. Facebook feeds anxieties/resentments oftentimes so I avoid it now. I may close it down soon, just to avoid the temptation to go on there and throw myself a private pity party, the hell with that :/

BTW Swingline, I read some of your posts, you mentioned having an FUE. How did it ultimately turn out for you? I am considering getting one myself.