September 18, 2002
stubble
Like a lot of I/T people, the Guy doesn't like to shave regularly. Back when we first started dating, his face was always cherub-like in its innocence, absolutely free of anything that suggested an acquaintance with puberty in his past. That was back in the courtship phase, of course, and now that we've moved onto the domestic comfort phase of our relationship, the Guy has shown a tendency to lapse back into old habits.
I/T habits.
Silicon Valley lends itself rather uniquely to the capture and study of I/T guys, and so far one of the great constants I've witnessed has been the near universal presence of malformed facial hair. In the four months that I've been working at the Purple Madhouse1, I can count on one hand -- on two fingers of one hand, one finger for counting, the other for backup -- the number of times I've seen our "Director of I/T's" 2 nose feature hairs that grew out rather than in.
I/T men seem to have an irrational attachment to beards-that-could-be, a chimera that they would categorically deny if actually pinned by the question. "I'd look terrible with a beard," the Guy says when I ask him, and I can detect a hint of wistfulness in his confession. "Besides, it never grows in." 3
All men at some point or another seem to have experimented with facial hair, either deliberately or out of sheer sloth. Women have makeup, or hairdye, or breast implants with which to create new personas: professional woman, alternative woman, big-boobed woman. Nature, being a lousy equalizer, has given men beards: professor man, street junkie man, Cro-Magnon man.
In point of fact, like most I/T people, my own personal Guy doesn't have the follicles to produce a full, dignified chin of hair. By his own admission, what eventually forms on his face after a period of aggressive apathy insofar as shaving is concerned, is a scraggly, slightly longer five-o'clock shadow most frequently modeled by professionally homeless drug addicts. It's fairly rare to find an Asian that can grow an acceptable beard; they tend to grow facial hair in patches, unevenly and without conviction.
The Chinese surrendered to the inconveniences of genetics quite early on by growing equivalent queues on both head and chin, creating an aesthetic out of anorexic length rather than thorough volume. Likewise the Japanese, who limited themselves to small mustaches and goatees, and boycotted male pattern baldness by shaving their heads and instituting topknots. 4
My personal opinion about I/T guys and Stubble is that they've somehow combined a personal prediliction towards sloth and an earnest need to be the lynchpin of a Babylon Tower, the foundation on which the edifice of commerce stands.
"Sure, so I'm a bit unseemly," says stubble, when an I/T guy wears it proudly through his company. "But the only reason I haven't shaved is because I haven't had time, because I've been battling day and night for weeks to keep this half-assed operation together on the crabgrass budget you've given me to work with, you ungrateful pricks." 5
I wandered into my bedroom a couple of months ago and discovered the Guy sitting at his desktop, unshaven, unshorn, a more robust version of Scooby Gang Shaggy. His stubble had been growing for days, and was now eating its unhealthy way across his cheeks and into his hair. The way my computer was set up gave me an excellent view of the right side of his face, so I stared at it for a few minutes before wandering into the bathroom.
When I came back, I had his electric razor in one hand.
The Guy didn't comment while I carefully ran the thing across his cheek. He was laboring, apparently, under the mistaken impression that I intended to provide an otherwise onerous service by shaving his entire face. Once I had a palm-sized patch cleaned of hair, I dusted him off, turned off the razor, and kissed him very cautiously on the newfound skin.
"You're only going to shave half my face?" the Guy protested.
"Your bristles hurt," I explained for his edification, and bore away the razor.
That night, he shaved and presented himself for inspection. As a reward, I kissed his other cheek as well.
A week later, he was back at the computer again, wallowing in half-centimeter facial hair.
Back I went to the electric razor, and once more I painstakingly shaved a palm-sized patch of his cheek, dusted it off, and kissed it. This time, the Guy started to giggle while I was on my way out the door. "See, the problem with your little scheme is, you think I'll be bothered that I look stupid with only a patch shaved, and I'll end up shaving my entire face."
I left him alone, still giggling over the computer, half his face bare, the other half covered with stubble.
He made it almost two hours before he caught sight of himself in the mirror.6
1. Churchhill on a blanket: I've been at this -- I would say "company," but it sounds like cruelty -- disaster for longer than my original estimate. In my first week here, the other new employee and I made a bet that the company would go under in three months, tops. I'm ambivalent about how I should feel, now that I find out we were wrong.
1. Quotation marks are more a comment on said "Director of I/T's" competence rather than his title. In four months here, I've yet to discover exactly what he does, since his typical modus operandi is to sit at his desk and read emails; anytime someone asks him to do real work, he delegates to hapless, competent I/T monkey under him. Yesterday, I/T monkey went home early because he was sick, and as a result our Internet connection went down and stayed down for nearly two hours. "Director of I/T" was on a long coffee break and, as usual, "forgot" to take his cell phone with him.
3. ...which implies that he's actually tried to grow a beard at some point or another. I, personally, think that this proves my point.
4. My apologies to the Koreans, who doubtless came up with something equally as brilliant. I unfortunately lack the immediate resources to learn what that 'equally as brilliant' was. Anybody out there with a background in Korean tradition is invited to educate me. I won't apologize for any omissions that slight other cultures; historically, Western cultures were dismayingly slow to adopt paper, printing, and bathing, and it seems like adding insult to injury to ask if any creative cultural bypasses were invented to deal with receding hairlines.
5.In more financially adventurous people, this instinct towards unappreciated self-immolation leads to careers as social workers, parents, and public school teachers.
6. He immediately shaved.
I always win.