All through college, and when I first moved to NYC, I kept clean-shaven.  But when I was 22 or 23, initially for the convenience during a period of frequent travel, I decided to try growing a beard.  Quickly, I realized that anything over two or three weeks of growth looked pretty terrible—overly patchy, like a mangy dog.  But with a trimmer, I could hold at one or two weeks of scruff, which I liked.  Every month or two, I’d shave it off completely.  And once or twice a year, I’d do a few weeks of 70’s porn ‘stache, until mounting protest would get me to shave that, too.  But otherwise, for the last decade and a half, short beard has been pretty much my default setting.

Over the years, as I’ve gotten older, my facial hair has also gotten thicker and heavier.  I first noticed the increase of heft during those mustached stretches, as in recent years I could get a surprisingly Tom Selleck/Sam Elliott thing going if I gave it time.  Which made me think: if I had vetoed the grown-out full beard on account of thinness, perhaps that would no longer be an issue.  So I resolved I’d let my beard grow for at least a month or two past my normal 3-week cap, and see what happened.

And, indeed, it did grow in, quickly and remarkably thickly, auburn red (the color of my mother’s hair, and, according to 23&me, the remnant of a Scandinavian streak in my otherwise solely Ashkenazi Jewish Eastern European Mutt ethnicity) with the occasional speckle of gray for a touch of gravitas.  But, as it grew for month after month, I also began to realize it wasn’t really veering towards mountain man/special forces/polar explorer in the way I had hoped.  Instead, I looked, in a word, rabbinical.  All I was missing was payis (the sideburn curls), a long black coat, and a black felt hat.

So, after four solid months, I eventually shaved back to ground zero.  And, based on the immediate feedback, I dropped about a decade of perceived age in the process.  Thus, it appears the answer remains: a week or two of scruff or less.  Any more and it’s oy gevalt indeed.