Goatees and other grooming habits of men
April 2003
by Michael Walls

I've grown a goatee. I don't know why. It was just something to do. Something different. I see other men with goatees, and it seems like a fairly fashionable thing to do, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I've had it for about a month now, and I have to ask – why do men grow goatees? It's extremely uncomfortable and a lot of work. Don't get me wrong – I think it looks pretty good, and my wife thinks it looks really good (she's a bit overexcited about it, which concerns me). It sort of gives me that artist/rocker/Robert DeNiro in the movie "Heat"/the cool, FedEx-guy-that-comes-to-the-office-everyday-but-doesn't-have-to-stay look.

But that's my point. Why do men grow these things? There's a lot of maintenance involved in keeping it in check, keeping tailored. And I've found that there is a fine line between a cool looking goatee and a lazy scruff. I have to shave everyday now. (I've got fair colored hair, so I use to only have to shave every 2-3 days.) But it's not just a normal shave. You have to pay attention. You have to stay within the lines. If you shave too much off one side, you have make adjustments to the other side. And there's some design technique to it too. Do you want it rounded under your chin? Or square? You can't let it grow uneven either. You have to trim it whenever little hairs start to outgrow the rest of the goatee. It's quite a complicated process.

So the only reason for a goatee is for looks. For vanity purposes. We think it makes us look good, so we take the extra ten minutes a day to groom.

Lately, I'm starting to notice other grooming techniques in men (which sounds a bit weird, but…). People at work, people around me, or famous people. Guys like Mike Piazza. Remember his complicated beard/mustache/side-burns design a few years ago? He must have spent 30 minutes a day trimming that thing. I noticed a guy on the train the other day with a good-looking goatee, an earing, a gold chain, and the front of his hair did some sort of cool "flip" thing. Very nice. I almost wanted to go over to him and say, "hey – thanks for going through all the trouble to look cool for everybody else." Because that's really who we're doing it for. Everybody else. I mean, you can't really see your own goatee or cool haircut, unless you look in the mirror. So for the most part, other people are really the recipients of all our efforts to look good.

The problem with sporting something stylish, like a goatee, is that you start to notice other areas of your "presentation" that aren't quite up to the appropriate levels. A goatee on an athlete or musician looks cool. But you take that exact same goatee and put it on a homeless guy, and it just looks sloppy.

My shoes and clothes have suddenly started to look less that appropriate on me, and I have started to find myself wandering the mall on my lunch break, hovering in front of the Perry Ellis and Tommy Hilfiger displays at Macys.

Next, my hair. I've always kept my hair short. It's extremely low maintenance, requiring barely any type of attention. I only need to say one word to my barber – "flattop" – and he knows what to do.

So now I'm thinking about letting my hair grow out – which could be interesting, because the last time my hair was longer than one-inch in length, I was 10 years old. I remember my father saying to my mom, "What? Are we raising a hippie child? How 'bout getting this kid a haircut!"

The problem is – I like to wear baseball hats in the summer. I hate talking off a hat and having to deal with "hat head". I also don't own a comb or brush.

So this goatee-thing is causing all sorts of dilemmas. I've got the wrong clothes, the wrong shoes, the wrong haircut. You wouldn't think it was a big deal – but you see a guy with a goatee, and he's sporting a whole image, a whole lifestyle – not just facial hair. He's putting all sorts of time and money and effort into that thing – all for other people's benefit – to look good for others.

I'll be honest. I don't think I can keep this goatee going. First off, I don't have the time for it. I just can't commit to the maintenance. If I continue to pursue this look, I know I don't have the skills or discipline to groom it properly. The result might be something akin to what David Wells cultivated in Chicago a few years ago. A bushy, back-woods, food strainer that could have become an entire chapter in a book titled, "How not to grow a goatee".

So, I think the experiment went well. I've gained a greater respect for general grooming in men, that I otherwise didn't appreciate. But the end result is, goatees are not for everyone, including me.

(Michael Walls is a volunteer staff writer for 2 Walls Webzine)