A 74-year-old woman muses about hair loss and attraction through the eyes of a more down-to-earth generation.

What is it about attraction that makes most people feel that baldness isn’t attractive? Is this learned? Or is it innate? What does it say about people who are attractive and can be attracted to someone bald while most others won’t or can’t be? Are they “deep” people? And are the other people “shallow” people? How does this work? What are the modern theories about this

— Curious Kate, Ontario Canada

Dear Curious Kate –

Love that you’re curious! It may just help some folks who read this.

I think it’s fair to say that people always measure themselves against other people. We do it in all aspects of life, be it in relationships, at the office, on the playing fields and, yes, even on the battlefields. Looks play an important role. Tall people tend to get more respect simply because they are tall. Short people at times will get less. Some will overcompensate for their height by acquiring other things in life, such as money, power and prestige, to force people to see them as bigger. From a young age we have always been taught that bigger and more are important things. Consequently, having less of something, in this case hair, naturally puts people at a perceived disadvantage. I use the word “perceived” because so much of this is a learned behavior that falls in line with us as a society. More is better!

I stop short of calling people shallow and choose instead to understand that what they’ve been exposed to with regard to information, both within their family and within society, has helped to shape their beliefs about what is attractive and what is not. Despite what messages we get from our culture, the bottom line is that all of us find certain things attractive and others things not even close. Plenty of women don’t care how much hair a guy has on his head but are very concerned about what their girlfriends are saying about them for thinking so.

The truth is your nephews may have personal experience around this, or perhaps they are just repeating stories they’ve heard and now believe to be true. We need to stop labeling and assuming and start treating each situation for what it is. Somewhere between the messages we get from beer commercials and swimsuit editions, there exists personal preference. The choice becomes how we see ourselves and others through this process. Live and let live.

Dear Mitch is written by “The Relationship Coach”, also known as Mitch Newman, M.A.. Write Dear Mitch at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or follow this link to fill out a form.  Every letter is carefully reviewed but because of the large numbers of letters we receive, not every letter can be answered.

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