Assumption 1: Bald guys are not sexy.
My mother is a big believer in this. "At least all my sons still have their hair!" Maybe it is a generational thing. In a cute Diagnosis Murder moment, Doc Sloan assures his son Steve that all the "bald" people in their family were bald by choice or "due to a bad perm."
What's so weird about this assumption, however, is how many bald guys are in fact considered sexy. Not just Kojak and Patrick Stewart and numerous basketball players but even less well-known characters, such as a Merrill Stubing on Love Boat, the adorable Alan Rachins and the ever-so-wise Robert Picardo (who quipped, "If Picard can baldly go, why not Picardo?"). There's no inherent reason to believe that a bald head is any more or less a negative than gray hair, curly hair, straight hair, red hair, etc.
2. Older women are less attractive than their younger selves.
I've had people, both men and women, say this to me as, again, some kind of mantra. Oh, it's a given.
And I find it odd. In The Hobbit, Cate Blanchett reprises her role of Lady Galadriel from The Lord of the Rings. "Oh, well, too bad she looks older!" a woman once said to me. She wasn't worried about continuity issues. She was amused by Cate Blanchett no longer looking fresh and untouched.
I consider Blanchett's older self far far more attractive. There's a whimsical quality in her features, an approach-ability that underscores the character.
But then I find older Columbo more attractive than younger Columbo.
I more or less sleepwalked through high school. During those years, so many other people seem to have adopted or acquired an entire way of viewing the universe that I failed to pick up. Sometimes, I find this a problem.
Sometimes, I'm very, very grateful I don't "get it."
