At some point we stopped liking hair if it existed below the eye line. Women, always ahead of the fashion curve by a handful of decades, have been curling, crimping, plucking, shaving and waxing the fine, thin strands of protein and keratin that almost uniquely define us as mammals for decades, if not centuries.

But now it’s our turn to face the mirror and do something more than brush our teeth in rhythmic slow motion, with a glazed expression that won’t be wiped until traffic has been defeated and the second cup of coffee is vanquished.

I’m a bearded man. Hipster alert: I was beardy before it was cool. I grew it to hide my bumpy chin and to age me a little – having too much of a baby face to take myself seriously, especially in the workplace. This is probably why everyone else grows one as soon as they are genetically able.

Despite the facial hair, I still tidy up. I shave the neck and trim the edges and I am a firm believer in the wet shave. I remember trying my father’s electric razor when I was growing up, it pinched a lot and took multiple passes to nab anything but the obvious strands. I still meet people who swear by it, but I don’t think anything has beaten straight edge razors.

I won’t enter a Seinfeld-ian argument about the merit of two blades versus four at this point, because when it comes to a proper shave, you want a straight razor.

First-world problems, for men only

There is something pleasing about the ritual of honing the edge on a leather strop and holding the handle like a maniac with a craving for blood afterwards. The knowledge that one false move can make for a messy floor and an embarrassing anecdote (“Oh Alan? He died cutting himself shaving.”) makes for a more serious and solemn process.

But it stops on the face. I don’t really get the whole “men should shave the body” part of things. Maybe it’s because I’m not shaped like an Adonis who is legally obligated to show off as much leg calf and tricep as humanly possible whenever the weather permits, but unless you’re sporting enough hair to weave a ponytail, I do not subscribe to the philosophy. How prevalent is male waxing? I’m told it’s employed often to ease up a monobrow, and the aforementioned Adonis’s legs. I never hear of anyone using it as a beard eliminator. Which leads me to gloss slightly over the issue of hair in the genital region. It is apparently preferred to be gone these days, so the solemnity of the ritual of carefully manipulating one’s self to get an angle to shave off the hair is only broken by the absurdity of the act itself.

Shaving aside, at least most men put a lot of stock into their actual hair. It seems that total baldness has become completely acceptable so long as you keep a polished top, maybe women have been put off for far too long by ill-fitting toupees and have accepted this as a compromise.

I don’t watch sports but I know for a fact that if I see the same, styled hair-do on at least three teenagers then clearly this is something a footballer debuted at an important game. Football being the vogue catwalk for the white-vest wearing part of our society, of course. While it’s been my experience that men are less likely to feel a crises when they develop a bald spot or find a grey hair, there are still those who cling to the ponytail as a symbol of the self.

Not limited to the metal-head or hippy post teenager as you’d think, the ponytail is the first act of rebellion a male teenager makes out of secondary school – facial hair will come in a few years too late. It’s a simple regime to maintain it, one simply ties it back and leaves the headband on until the next shower. When persuaded, one might trim an inch off the edges to remove split ends. A friend of mine, many years ago, had to slice the waist-length hair down to a corporate level, due to his new employment at a bank. He was nearly in tears and, years later, almost reconsidered a second place of employment due to the hair policy. He’s 30 now. He’s still sporting a tail. He’s not the only one.

Ponytails are a symbol of laziness or the inability to accept actual age. I believe that of all the messy male habits, this is the one that needs to be cropped. Grow up, get into a grooming regimen and give your snipped ponytail to a charity like locksoflove.org, who will turn your castoffs into wigs for children with alopecia and cancer. They need it as much as you don’t.