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Wooo, Class VI! That qualifies you for at least master sergeant in the Bald Man's Army.

OK, I had two options. I could shave my head, or I could comb my remaining side hair over the top of my head. I can hear you now. Shave your head! No-brainer! Yeah, but it was the 1990s. Bald wasn't cool yet. I had no fashion sense. (I owned clothing that contained the words "Co-Ed Naked" -- it hurts my fingers to type that.) And I was shy. I didn't want to be noticed. I was the kind of person who looked at the phone with dread every time it rang.

I didn't make a conscious decision. I just started combing my hair over. At first, no one noticed, mainly because I wore a hat most of the time. Then a couple of friends made comments -- either in jest or in support. The supportive comments hurt more, because they were tinged with pity. "It happens to a lot of men," is a sentence no guy ever wants to hear under any circumstance.

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"Don't worry, not getting to have sex with me happens to a lot of men."

One day in college I met up with a girl I liked to watch a track meet. I was sitting in the stands with her and a few of her friends when the wind blew so hard, it lifted my comb-over off my head, not unlike the opening of a toilet lid. I held my hair on my head and kept talking as if it was perfectly normal for an adult man to use his hand to keep his hair from flying off his head. The conversation, as you would imagine, stopped. I excused myself, and I never saw the girl again. I mean, ever. I think she transferred schools immediately after the track meet.