It has become unequivocally obvious to me that I have a preference for men with beards. Now, those of you who know my husband won’t be surprised by this. He has a pretty major beard and is very deliberate about growing it in thick especially during the Winter. He calls it “Winter’s Beard.” It’s one of those things that makes me roll my eyes and laugh at the same time. I used to play with his beard a lot when we first met and he first started growing it in. Also my dad has had a beard most all of my life since I was a baby. I’ve seen pictures of him when he was young and clean shaven and he and my mom were just getting together. I like his face better with a beard. LOL!

The only reason I mention this is because I never really had any particular body type  or strict physical preference for men I was attracted to or went out with in past. I’ve gone out with tall men, short men, men of different races, older men, younger men (my husband is younger than me) skinny men, big men, etc. My preferences with regard to romantic interests have always been more personality oriented. A sense of humor, intelligence, open mind, love of music. I do like nice eyes though. Not necessarily eye shape or color but eyes with depth and soul, mischief, kindness, communicative eyes. I like men who who are able to communicate on many levels. This is not to say I don’t notice appearance. I’m a photographer. My dad is a photographer. But I think I’m generally open to people showing up as who they are as long as they bathe and are not pretentious. There have been other deal  breakers but once I was hooked by something in the personality, the rest if not relatively agreeable became fairly negotiable.

But the beard thing is something I’ve noticed recently because when I see men with beards I like, I have an immediate reaction to them. I like them. A lot. It makes a huge difference. Now I do have some beard preferences. I like thick solid beards and five o’clock shadow, shadowy beards. That horrible spotty scruffy hobo beard that Matthew McConaughey was sporting at the Golden Globes Sunday night was a fail for me. It just made me want to feed him and put him in a shower. I’m also not into massively metro-sexual manicured beards either. Too much manicure takes away from the rawness of it, which is part of what I like.

As an air sign, this attraction to rawness in appearance which I associate with earthiness is new to me. But clearly it’s always been there. I must have played with my dad’s beard when I was a baby. We’ve always been very close and he only carried me around like a gazillion times when I was little. So I think my love of beards is somehow wrapped up, not only in an idea of manliness but also in wisdom, age and stability. I remember in high school the point at which most every young boy was wrestling with his follicles in order to tease out some hard earned looking facial hair. I always thought it was kind of silly then but amusing to watch. Like I said, in those days, facial hair never factored into my rules of attraction.

But lately I’ve noticed, both in film and television personalities and in my own personal choice of mate, that the beard is pretty special to me. I do know that I have always loved men with long hair and who let their hair grow. I was always heartbroken when a guy I was seeing had to go to the barber to get a “trim.” If he had long hair, it felt to me like he was shorn like a sheep and naked afterward. I think it’s because I subscribe to the Samson theory about long hair. Oh that was one of my favorite Bible stories as a girl. I couldn’t stand Delilah! And I couldn’t stand that Samson fell for her trifling shady behind. UGH!!! Yet another woman hating fable.

Anyway, fable or not, hair is very personal and every man grows his beard differently so maybe that’s also why I like it. It cannot help but tell the unique story of it’s owner. It’s one of those things that men claim as a of symbol of maturity, even if they aren’t actually mature. LOL! It feels primitive and ancient. You know? Like a woman’s menstrual cycle.

Whaaaat? Did I go and lose you?

LOL!!!