THE PORTRAIT OF DORIAN BROWN Part 1

        To dye or not to dye, that is the question. Every two weeks  I have to look in the mirror and decide if the man with the gray beard deserves to stay or the man with the brown beard needs to return. Is dyeing one's beard dishonest, desperate,and superficial, or in fact is it absolutely appropriate for a man like me? It has become my personal "Sophie's Choice". True, having a Nazi make Sophie choose which child she keeps and which child he takes is the worst choice anyone would ever have to make, but at least she only had to make her choice once. I, on the other hand, am going to have to make the decision to re-dye my beard 26 times a year, possibly for the next 30  to 40 years, for a grand total between  780 and 940 times. Even the thought of it is exhausting.
      I went  for advice to the four men who know me best and who once loved me most, my ex-boyfriends. Unfortunately, I forgot they are also the four men who love to make fun of me most. After they were able to stop laughing at me, they each gave me their honest opinion.  Brian, boyfriend number three,  hates beards on anyone no matter what the color because they scratch his asshole. This of course disqualifies his opinion. Grant, boyfriend number four, the youngest one and the one  who is truly most attracted to older men regardless of their graying, thinks dyeing my beard is ridiculous. This disqualifies his opinion as well.  Pepe, boyfriend number two, who I saw in New York after I dyed my beard for the first time last August, didn't  even remember me having a beard, which totally disqualifies him and ends our friendship ( just kidding, honey. Love you).  Scott, my first and longest-lasted boyfriend of nine years and best friend in the world who I have spoken with everyday for 33 years, had his opinion too when I saw him and his boyfriend Jason of 17 years in Upstate New York on the same trip I saw Pepe. He was the only one who thought dyeing my beard was a great idea. But Scott is also the one who has bared witness to and suffered through every subsequent painfully stretched-out, heart-wrenching break-up after ours that I pulled him into with countless late night long-distance calls he and Jason had to listen to as I repeated the same complaints and stories over and over like second-hand smoke coming through the phone receiver into their lungs. Scott is also the one who has to deal with my more recent phone calls over the traffic accidents between my ego, vanity, and aging that are becoming more mangled and bloody. He is at the point that he will agree with anything including my brown beard that stokes my confidence and keeps me from having a mid-life meltdown which he and Jason would have to suffer through with even more phone calls. This disqualifies Scott too. Sorry, Scott.  I can't even trust my new boyfriend Alex's opinion in the matter. Alex is still blissfully blind to my fatal flaws and is at the dreamy stage where he thinks I'm an amazing boyfriend who looks great with my beard gray or brown. This, along with the fact that he himself is graying a little, doubly disqualifies him. A lot of good turning to all of them did.  
      I can't believe I'm going through this dilemma.  I was one of those men who vowed I would never dye my beard. But I also once vowed to never get a cell phone or a computer, which was changed to a vow of never texting on my cellphone or joining a cruising site on my computer, which was then changed to a vow of never sending naked pictures of myself on the cruising site I joined or on my phone, which was then changed to never sending a cock shot, which then had to be changed to never sending a picture of my hard cock. Needless to say, that vow has been broken too.  What is it with me and my vows? I used to be great at sticking to them, when I was younger and more self-righteous, and my stands were more black-and-white. Now it's all about brown-and-gray. I'm not as certain anymore about what is right and what is wrong, nor am I as self-assured. I never thought I would fall victim to this new kind of insecurity. I always thought that my overly abundant confidence in how I look could withstand graying and I wouldn't loose any of my street appeal. It was only a  year ago that I actually became aware  of what I  call 'The March Into Invisibility'. We're all on it, but some marchers are marching faster and some are marching slower; some are digging their heels and being dragged along, and some trying to march backwards. And then there are those who have always been invisible and don't even know the change is happening. That's the overdue reward they get for having to live unnoticed their whole lives.  Ironically, they turn into the lucky ones.
     Dyeing my beard has turned into a slippery slope. It's embarrassing to admit, but I've started to plan my social calendar around it. Even more embarrassing is the fact that I actually have changed plans to go out a few times and rescheduled them for after I re-dyed my beard . I've dealt with addictions before, but who knew that beard dye would be my biggest weakness and greatest challenge.  Heroine addicts chase the 'brown dragon'.  I'm chasing the 'brown dye'. When it wears off and I'm back to gray, I pass by mirrors and don't recognize myself. The last major shift in my appearance happened when i went bald, over 20 years ago, and since that time the same man has stared at me from the mirror until now. 

    What makes it harder is that my face is aging faster than my body. In pictures it looks like someone photo -shopped an older man's head onto me. My body has been exactly the same since I was 20 and I've stayed the same weight since high school (168 lbs, for over thirty years, give or take 1/2 pound. Annoying, isn't it? or even more accurately, aren't I?). I still work-out just as much, but the gym doesn't have any machines for the face. The neck is the closest they get. The face is the thing that shows most and is the thing you can exercise least, yet another example of God's cruelty. 
      When I dye my beard, my face actually matches my body again. We have a reunion every 14 days. I look in the mirror and he smiles back and nods. I go out onto the streets and get looked at the same amount as I did when I was  five, even ten,  years younger  but by day 14 the brown is almost all replaced by gray and  I've turned back into my grandfather again. The first time I dyed it I was both thrilled and appalled at the difference in attention it immediately brought. I couldn't believe it all boiled down to my beard color. Everything else was exactly the same as it was when my beard was gray: same clothes, same smile, same strut, same  friendliness. I seem to be a different man depending on my beard color in the world's eyes, even though I still feel like the same man inside. Occasionally, I  do have moments of clarity and  realize how absurd I'm being and that I had a great time in my younger days and got all the attention I ever wanted and  now it is time for a  different phase, but it's followed by a wave of panic which is then followed by a trip to Walgreen's for more "Just For Men" Medium Brown.

   My  built-in Geiger counter is so fine-tuned  that I immediately feel any shift in the level of attention I am  getting.  The grayer I get, the more invisible I become, especially to young, which there are more and more of every year that I get older. This is a natural process that every person eventually goes through yet there is no rule book to follow or manual to guide us, especially for older gay men. And even more so for older gay men who still want to be noticed. 
     The big questions that have to be asked are, "Why do I need so much attention and how can I get past it?" Well that's a whole other blog, isn't it.