Okay, so you have Alopecia. And let’s say your friends fix you up on a blind date. And you almost want to tell your friends you can’t go on the date, because you don’t know how to handle dating when you are dealing with Alopecia. For instance, are you supposed to tell your date that you are losing your hair? If so, when do you tell him? And what if you recently started wearing a wig, and your date, without knowing you have Alopecia, compliments your hair style…do you admit that you can put your hair on and take it off at will? What if you don’t tell your date you wear a wig, and he puts his hands on your face for a quick goodnight kiss, and the wig catches on his watch? Or, (as once happened to me) what if you are wearing a little synthetic hair piece and your date knocks it off as he twirls you on the dance floor? What do you do? Go skittering after it, searching among the feet of the other dancers as they unwittingly kicked it away? Luckily, when that happened to me, I had told that date I wore a hair piece, and he assisted me in retrieving it and re-attaching it!
Before you can communicate to anyone about your hair loss, you need to communicate with yourself. Make sure you have, on some level, accepted your Alopecia, and have gone through the ‘grief and acceptance process’, or what I call the ‘emotional homework’ of dealing with Alopecia.
When I worked as a hair replacement consultant for Charle…a hair studio, I consulted with women who were purchasing a hair piece for the first time. Regardless of whether their hair loss was due to Androgenetic Alopecia, (aka Female Hereditary Thinning), Alopecia Areata or Chemotherapy Treatments, all of the women were a little shell shocked about their hair loss. Sometimes during a consultation, I sensed that what the woman was seeking was not a cover-up…she was seeking the impossible; she wanted her hair back. It was obvious then that putting the woman in a wig was not going to make her feel better because she had not gone through the ‘grief and acceptance process’. It was to women like this that I suggested doing ‘emotional homework’. They needed to work through their feelings of frustration and grief, before it was going to make sense for them to purchase a hair piece. I wrote about letting that grief express itself, at least internally, in my first blog entitled “Putting Hair Loss Into Perspective”.
But let’s get back to the dating issues. If you are still feeling a little vulnerable about your hair, and there is a possibility that you will get emotional talking about it, then it is probably not the time to share that information. Keep it to yourself until you’ve gotten a better grip on your situation. Let’s say, however, that you are somewhat accepting of your Alopecia, and want to get on with your life, and back out into the dating world. You know you will need to share it with a few people, so how do you go about it? First of all, take a deep breath. Don’t blurt it out on a first date, but after a couple of dates when you and your date are starting to exchange more personal information, that might be a time to casually mention your Alopecia. Talking about your hair loss is really very simple. Just follow the basic rule of any communication with anyone; the way you present your personal issues to others is the way they will receive that information. If you can be matter-of-fact about your Alopecia, then usually, they will be too.
A few years ago, I was a founding member of a San Francisco support group for women with Androgenetic Alopecia. At one meeting, we discussed hair loss and dating issues, and I will never forget the story of how one woman shared her Alopecia. She was a very cute lady who described her first date with the man who eventually became her husband. Over a glass of wine, the woman told this brand new man in her life that whenever she was upset, her hair would start to fall out. “So,” she told him, “You’d better be nice to me!” This was said with a chuckle, a cute smile and an engaging manner. The man’s response? Every few weeks as they were dating, he would look at her and say, “How am I doing? Is your hair okay?” It became a bit of a light hearted joke between them. By the time I met this woman, she and her husband had been married several years, and he was just as supportive as he had been back at the beginning of their relationship. Now, granted, this approach would not work for everyone. I’m sure there are some mental health professionals out there who might even take issue with this woman’s approach, saying it was not fair to put so much pressure on the man (i.e. making him feel responsible if the woman’s hair did start to shed), but the lesson I learned from hearing her story was that there is more than one way to share something so personal. This woman felt confident in herself, and had accepted her Alopecia to the point of even being able to joke about it. The way she presented her hair loss worked for her and her husband, and that’s what is important.
When I was dating my husband, I did share with him early in our relationship that I was worried about my hair. He never seemed to mind how my hair looked and often complimented me on my appearance. However, what did bother him about my Alopecia was that I cried so much over it. He was and is a very social person and I was insecure, reclusive, and hated social engagements. I hated invitations to spend a weekend at someone else’s house. I hated the wind, the rain, bright lights above a table at a restaurant. I even hated elevators because of their bright light shining down upon what was a very sparsely covered scalp. Getting tired of the tears, it was he who suggested I might consider wearing a wig. At first I was insulted and more than a little shocked at the nerve of him to suggest such a thing. However, once I became used to the idea, I found that wearing a hair piece was at least part of the answer for me. The important thing here is that he did not run away, and for the most part, he accepted me for the person I was.
The good news these days is that there are many Alopecia websites online. Dating and Alopecia is just one of the myriad subjects which come up often. The best way to learn when and how to share your Alopecia is by finding out how other women have handled this same issue.
Remember, you teach people how to treat you. Whether you wear a wig or not, the more comfortable you are with your Alopecia, the more comfortable those around you will be.
