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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be totally shocked by how rude this man was and totally impressed by my poor dh

175 replies

noonar · 21/10/2011 19:56

my dh is very sexy, objectively handsome and a lovely man.

he happens to shave his head, as he would otherwise have very little hair.

so... that means he's bald.

tonight, dd2 (7)was brought home after tea by the dad of a friend of hers. dh had never met him before.

whilst playing at the friend's house, they had a little makeover session and sprayed dd's hair with coloured spray.

as they approached the house and walked towards us, dh exclaimed 'oh look- dd has orange hair!', to which the father responded:

'as opposed to her daddy, who has absolutely no hair'

neither dh nor i responded. i was too shocked and embarrassed to speak.

dh, on the other hand said nothing until half an hour later when he spoke in an incredibly reasonable way about the incident. he said that sometimes people feel socially awkward and say things about being bald without thinking. he said that the man was probably cringing all the way home, and that he did not respond as he didnt want to create an awkward situation that could not be easily put right.

he said that he would give this man the benefit of the doubt on this occasion, asbut if in future he continued to be a twat, that he'd put him in his place.

AIBU to feel cross that people find bald jokes A) funny and B) socially acceptable? but i am also v v proud of my dh's measured response.

OP posts:
Joolyjoolyjoo · 21/10/2011 22:11

Noonar (sorry, I keep coming back to this thread!) Just been talking to DH about it. He reckons he was a bit "twitchy" about balding when he was, well, bald-ing. Now he is bald, he reckons he just has to accept it. He is bald. And also shaves the remainder. To those who say you wouldn't know the difference, you do. It's obvious that shaved bits are only at the sides and back, so possibly a bit insensitive of the guy in question, but he quite possibly didn't think the DH would be bothered as he had obviously embraced/ accepted baldness.

JeremyVile · 21/10/2011 22:11

Shaven heads are shiny Confused

JeremyVile · 21/10/2011 22:13

Maybe if you are the balding person who shaves, or are the wife of one you can tell the difference.

I really truly cant.

Kayano · 21/10/2011 22:13

My friends BIC-ed head is shiny Hmm

AnyPhantomFucker · 21/10/2011 22:14

noonar, thanks for saying that

you absolutely can tell when someone is bald and shaves

within a couple of hours even, where there is normally hair, you get a shadow, stubble whatever you wanna call it

where there is no hair, it totally smooth and shiny

the two are very, very different and obvious even from a casual encounter

not that it matters but that is the truth

Joolyjoolyjoo · 21/10/2011 22:14

ThePerfectFather- great post- you sound like my DH (but I know you're not, as we only have one computer, and I'm on it!)

Original poster
noonar · 21/10/2011 22:15

jeremy, when you shave every day, the hair starts to grow back within hours so you get a kind of five o clock shadow which gives a mattness not present on the naturally bald part of the head.

i know this is not RL but this thread is starting to make me feel like shit, so i'm outta here.

thanks everyone, hope you all feel better.

OP posts:
DoMeDon · 21/10/2011 22:16

There is shaved and clippered - if you bic shave your head there is no difference between that and balding.

NOONe else in the world gives this a second thought - bald is bald is no hair is shaved is... who cares!?!

unpa1dcar3r · 21/10/2011 22:16

My kids sing to their dad
"hey you over there, what's it like to have no hair...Ballldy"
He don't care. He just tickles them.
I sing it to him too sometimes. But he don't tickle me cos I'd probably thump his bald head if he did.

Joolyjoolyjoo · 21/10/2011 22:19

noonar- don't be upset, there are lots of empathetic and constructive posts on this thread. If anything you should take comfort fro the fact that

  1. Lots of people think bald men are sexy Wink
  2. the guy didn't see it as something "not to mention" so didn't see it as a "bad" thing
  3. That some people couldn't tell that your DH was bald rather than shaven-headed
Original poster
noonar · 21/10/2011 22:19

i know jool, but a lot of bitching too x.

shame.

OP posts:
Kayano · 21/10/2011 22:20

Do you remember that song
'a pizza hut, a pizza hut, Kentucky fried chicken and a pizza hut'?

I had a 'dad ' version
A builders bum, a builders bum, a baldy head and a builders bum...

My dad thought I would be the next big thing I music and loved it Grin
You two really need to relax

JeremyVile · 21/10/2011 22:20

That makes sense re regrowth.

But honestly I wouldnt know.

I just see a completely bald head on a young-ish man, and i assume its shaved, dont give any more thought to it than that. I imagine this man is the same?

Didnt mean to make you feel bad, just saying that a bald head is not necessarily a negative thing . And so a comment on it needn't imply negative intentions.

MissPenteuth · 21/10/2011 22:25

My BIL is 30yo and shaves his head. I know from my sister that he shaves because he's thinning/balding, but I've honestly never looked close enough to make a guess at where the shaved bit ends and the bald part begins. If I didn't know his reason for shaving I'd assume he did it by choice. I'm not going to argue whether you can or can't always tell, but in this particular instance I honestly can't tell. And I really don't care anyway!

OP, I'm sorry you and your DH were upset by the friend's comment. But I think that judging him for that comment alone would be an overreaction.

NigellaTufnel · 21/10/2011 22:40

Great flounce OP.

You are happy to call people stupid, and then start with all the huffy nonsense.

Bet you are a right laugh at parent get togethers.

basically, you just want us all to say that your DH is wonderful, and this other man is a cock.

Proudnscary · 21/10/2011 22:50

Oof someone needs to get a sense of humour/life/grip/toupee.

RattusRattus · 21/10/2011 23:06

If your DH has been losing his hair for 19 years I'm very surprised that he hasn't got over the fact by now. There is a definite lack of humour and self deprecation in the two of you that would serve you both well.

And considering your rather unpleasant post to badmummy at Fri 21-Oct-11 21:54:10 in which you are accusing her of being "very stupid" I think that's rather ironic considering your OP is about someone else's apparent rudeness. Pot, kettle, black.

stripeybumpinthenight · 21/10/2011 23:12

If your DH is good-looking, surely he can shrug off a bit of banter about his baldness? Honestly, my DH and his mates rib each other all the time about their weak points. I think you're projecting your own insecurities on to him - relax, he's a big boy.

NoobyNoob · 22/10/2011 07:14

Massive over-reaction. So YABU.

notevenamOoOooOoooosie · 22/10/2011 07:17

I expect the other man thought you/ your DH were criticising what he'd done whilst taking care of your child, having never met you before - he could have said "doesn't dd's hair look great", but chose not to, made instead what could be seen as a sarcastic remark, and got what might have been one in return.

Megatron · 22/10/2011 07:27

My DH has been losing his hair since his early twenties and he now shaves his head and has done for the last few years. He used to be pretty self conscious about going bald but he knows he can't change it and over the last couple of years has just accepted it as the way it is. People frequently make comments, some from people he hardly knows, and he just laughs them off.

He's in his 50s now so perhaps he is much older than your DH but he really feels now that it's just not important enough to get worked up about. He just tells people he has an exceptionally high forehead. Smile I hope your DH comes to terms with losing his hair, I'm sure he'll feel so much better about it when he does.

AlpinePony · 22/10/2011 07:36

You are both totally overreacting and tbh it sounds like there are issues with his hair loss which neither of you are prepared to acknowledge - it's normal, men aren't happy losing their hair (my partner started losing his when he was 19...).

My point is - this man didn't say "oooh your daddy lost all his hair" - he said "your daddy has no hair".

If I chose to shave off all my hair I'd have to be a total dick to get upset if people comment upon it!

nooka · 22/10/2011 07:41

I think that you have to be careful when making physical comments, but if you have a noticeable feature and it's not seen as socially bad then you will get comments. So my family frequently get comments about being tall. dh (6'5") does get bothered about this, but the people making the comments don't understand that he might be sensitive because they think being tall is good. I've got way more comments for being thin than my very overweight boss got for being fat because to most people thin=good and fat=bad. Sometimes dh gets a bit stroppy about the 'aren't you tall' type comments, and it can be a bit embarrassing at times because it does seem OTT (I chose him primarily because I like tall guys, so I guess I don't notice the insult that he hears).

Most people will think that someone with no hair has shaved it off, and that they are making a statement which is therefore OK to comment on. Of course they will be aware that many men decide to shave because they are going bald but that's one of those inevitable things really for most guys. Now what the other dad won't have known is that your dh started to go bald a long time ago and is therefore sensitive. This is not a case of the other guy being a 'twat' but just a bit of social awkwardness. Yes maybe it was over familiar, but then if he'd been with your dd all day perhaps he felt he knew you by proxy.

TheOriginalFAB · 22/10/2011 07:51

What do you mean by "objectively handsome"?

KittyFane · 22/10/2011 07:55

You really did start to sound ridiculous before the flounce OP.

I too think that you wanted people to agree that the other man is a complete k**b in contrast to your lovely husband.

Your husband is bald FFS. This is not out of the ordinary.

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