When I met my future wife I was 21, and she wanted me to grow a beard, so I did. Since then I have occasionally asked coworkers who have complained about shaving why *they* don't grow beards: the most common answer is "My wife doesn't want me to."
Moved to COFF ... while bearded UNIX folks do seem to be a common thread, I think we are stretching Warren's patience a tad. So ... I have sort of a different story.
I had shaved in off and on during college and in the first few years I was working but had grown it back before grad school. I still was not sure I liked having it, and as I got close to finishing, I mentioned to my officemates at UCB that I'd shave it when Newton (our advisor) signed my thesis as a signal to everyone I was done.
So the day I came into the office clean-shaven, Peter Moore looks up and remarked, 'now I know why you wore one.'
So, I showed up at Masscomp without it and was quickly ostracized as so many of the SW team had some sort of facial hair, I quickly grew it back.
Roll forward 20ish years and my wife egged me into shaving it off one summer weekend. Our then 5-year-old daughter cried -- she wanted her Daddy back. I've had it ever since.
When I was in the Marine Corps I shaved nearly every day (the exceptions were extended leaves back home or occasional extra-long missions in Afghanistan when we were outside the wire). I once tried the permitted-but-frowned-upon "low regulation" haircut and didn't like it. I usually opted for the Navy standard "high regulation" haircut instead of the super-motivated USMC "high and tight", which I always thought looked goofy, and is the haircut they give you right before you graduate from boot camp.
When I got out, I luxuriated in not shaving for weeks at a time because I could and, frankly, no one would yell at me. When my kids were born, it became a nuisance I would attend to as time permitted. When my youngest was born, I was in the habit of shaving biweekly, if that. One time I let it grow for a couple of months and then abruptly shaved at night; I remember being nervous that she would not recognize me in the morning, but she saw that I was clean shaven and actually gave me a big smile and seemed rather delighted. I was secretly relieved.
That said, 20 years later she and her mother both claim I would look younger if I shaved it. But at this point, I kinda like not having to shave my neck and lower chin every day if I don't want to; so I have ignored them.
I still alternate between clean-shaven and not; mostly I prefer clean-shaven because otherwise I tend to get bumps and generally find it uncomfortable. At one point when I was young I had hair down to my shoulders but honestly, I just can't pull off long hair anymore: I keep a relatively short haircut. I haven't seen the inside of a barber shop since the start of the pandemic, but I've shaved my head multiple times as I'm reasonably certain I can do that without completely messing it up, and I have clippers that will go down to the scalp. It grows back pretty quickly, so I only look like a conehead for a couple of days; as we used to say in the Corps, the difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is a week.
- Dan C.