You’re Going Bald

A Rugby Match, a Turkish Torture Chair, and the Price of Looking Almost Normal Again Note: A shorter version of this was one of the Toronto Globe & Mail's five most popular essays of 2024.

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I’ll never forget his words. I was minding my own business, engrossed in a rugby match on TV, when the verdict dropped. “You’re going bald,” he proclaimed, his voice dripping with the sanctimonious revulsion of a freshly minted evangelist spotting a sinner. As if my thinning pate were a moral lapse, a heresy he couldn’t let slide unreproved.