It would take two people complimenting me on my unshaved face to embrace the fact that I would now be actively trying to grow a beard. Granted these people were also young men with stubble of their own, itchy-backed and seeking reciprocity, and technically my employees so they could just be taking the piss, but this was the excuse I needed.

Self-conscious of the empty space that eats into the growth on my cheeks but mostly the one patch under my chin (bothering me enough to write about it at length), I had been told that to fill in these fleshy voids of masculinity I would simply need to go feral and not shave at all. More piss taking perhaps, but in for a penny in for a pound.

Not very flattering images above, but please remember the words of Orson Welles who said that: “part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child’s eyes, is that the child is usually looking upward, and few faces are at their best when seen from below.” And remember too the words of my 3 Mobile Upgrade Consultant who, when speaking of my Samsung J3 (2016) said “The front camera is 5 megapixels, which means it’s a bad camera”. But enough vanity, and onto this beard that I so keenly need to preen.

I let it grow wild and wiry, poking out in all directions from my face, which is hairy enough as it is. When it gets a bit much I trim away at my neck but leave my cheeks and chin. For some reason it doesn’t look normal. Alas, I am in need of a haircut and so I head to my barbers, whom I now trust deeply. The Turkish chaps here know how to deal with dark hair, trimming below the neck of my t-shirt where others would not, throwing fire at my ears like a fucking exorcism. It feels legit.

When the guy sees my attempt at a beard, he asks what I want done with it. I want to grow it. He gives an avuncular nod and equips himself with a small set of clippers. He hacks away and creates a neckline across my throat, traces it with his finger and says that this is where I need to shave, that it will allow the hair to get some volume and make it less lop-sided on my face. He says all of this in a slightly hushed tone, as though he doesn’t want to embarrass me, which I fully appreciate but it does make the words sting a little. I clearly don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.

Onto my sideburns, he trims them down to the corner of my jaw and then in another bout of barberly advice leans in and says that I need to keep this part from growing too much, that it won’t gather, it’ll crawl out and “look like pubes”. I feel like a teenager, with this surrogate barber giving advice that will stop me from getting bullied at school.

I leave the barbers enlightened, and keep up the practice – trimming a neckline and keeping the pubes from the corners of my face. In a matter of weeks the patch has vanished. I plan to keep it going until my entire face is covered. Teen Wolf Ahoy.