Let’s talk about beards

[monarch64]

Let’s talk about beards. Being one, knowing one, unacknowledging one, do you think you’ve known a person who poses as a spouse/gf/bf?

So curious. I mean no harm, we’ve just been on this site for 25 years now and many people remain anonymous. And that makes me curious.

 

[kenny]

My DH has an excellent beard.

 

[Missy]

I hate facial hair of all kind

Oh, you mean being a beard...i've never known anyone who was a beard for someone and truly hope no one needs to have or be a beard anymore . But being the realist I am I am guessing yes some still feel the need to hide who they are and that makes me sad. The world we live in is a harsh place

 

[monarch64]

@missy you’re hilarious! But yes, you’re obviously picking up what I’m puttin’ down.

I’ve had a series of events in my life that lead me to ask this question here. Like, such a long series full of so many instances that I think “it can’t just be me, can it?”

 

[stracci2000]

Back in the 80s, I had a family member who was still in the closet.
He was a hairdresser.
He was always bringing pretty girls around, giving the impression that he was in relationships with them.
The older family members thought he was dating them, which was his intention.

We younger family members knew different.
They were really just friends and he was doing their hair and makeup.
He would pick out their clothes, style their hair and then a bunch of us would go out dancing at the clubs.
It was a grand time back then. We had so much fun, but it is sad that he had to deflect his identity that way.
But it was the 80s.
I'm sad to say that he died of AIDS in the 90s.
We loved him so much.

 

[RMOO]

I'm glad to say that in my circle of relatives, friends, and acquaintances, the younger generations see no need for affecting this façade in life. However, I often wondered if my aunt (by marriage) was a beard. The marriage did not last, and my uncle, who would be over a 100 if he were still alive, drank himself to death, literally. It is sad to think that he may have been so unhappy because of social pressures to hide his true self. Another couple, now in their 80/90s are lifelong "roommates."

I hope we don't return to the days of ignorance, where people don't feel free to be who they are.

 

[Matata]

Matata, so out of touch, frantically pounds the keyboard searching for "beard". Is it the same as a sock? Nope. Is it something related to all the websites that google yielded about men complaining they are discriminated against because they have beards (facial hair)? Nope. Scrolling down the search page faster than the speed of light and AHA, there it is, a fake companion. Why don't they call it a hairpiece or a wig since those are clearly fake ?

Matata slowly retreats back into her cave.

 

[Karl_K]

This thread was very confusing until I googled.

 

[Karl_K]

Matata, so out of touch, frantically pounds the keyboard searching for "beard". Is it the same as a sock? Nope. Is it something related to all the websites that google yielded about men complaining they are discriminated against because they have beards (facial hair)? Nope. Scrolling down the search page faster than the speed of light and AHA, there it is, a fake companion. Why don't they call it a hairpiece or a wig since those are clearly fake ?

Matata slowly retreats back into her cave.

lol I was in good company in confusion land

 

[Lookinagain]

When I saw the title, I was thinking facial hair, and thought "nope". Then realized it was someone who "covers" for someone. But I had only heard of it in relation to people cheating on their spouses so would take a friend along with them and tell their spouse that the two of them were going somewhere, when in reality, there would be a third that would show up, the "paramour".

 

[Inked]

I came to post this and realized I had the wrong beard




I feel like this is way less a "thing" now as thankfully society has become more tolerant, and i feel sad for anyone who feels they need to hide their identity.

I do think there was one guy i dated who just didnt want to admit to HIMSELF his true identity, but that's a whole different psychological profile.

 

[seaurchin]

Matata, so out of touch, frantically pounds the keyboard searching for "beard". Is it the same as a sock? Nope. Is it something related to all the websites that google yielded about men complaining they are discriminated against because they have beards (facial hair)? Nope. Scrolling down the search page faster than the speed of light and AHA, there it is, a fake companion. Why don't they call it a hairpiece or a wig since those are clearly fake ?

Matata slowly retreats back into her cave.

Well, a man who covers for a lesbian is called a "merkin," which is a pubic wig. That's what I heard somewhere, anyway.

 

[seaurchin]

After I thought about it, I have actually known three women, through the years, who discovered their husbands were gay or at least secretly bi and secretly acting on it. But I haven't known any who covered for them with informed consent.

 

[Austina]

I had a friend who became convinced her husband was gay. I think he chose her because she’d had a very unhappy childhood, her mother had been married several times, so she only ever wanted to be married once. She was older when they got married, so he thought it unlikely they’d be able to have children (they didn’t, she wanted to but he always made excuses about seeking help). He thought letting her buy whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted, would keep her happy - it didn’t.

It took a while before she realised (or maybe she didn’t want to admit to herself) that his behaviour wasn’t ’normal’. She was an extremely attractive woman with a great bod, but after the honeymoon period was over, he just wasn’t interested in her physically.

She did end up divorcing him, but they still ended up going out together!

 

[RMOO]

I didn't know that the woman was necessarily aware she was a beard, just that she was being used as a beard.

 

[Karl_K]

A friend of mine took his girlfriend(2nd date) to a family event and his mom introduced her as his wife to everyone.
She just rolled with it and had fun.
About a year later there were a bunch of people confused to get a wedding invite to their wedding.
Does that count?

 

[Lookinagain]

A friend of mine took his girlfriend(2nd date) to a family event and his mom introduced her as his wife to everyone.
She just rolled with it and had fun.
About a year later there were a bunch of people confused to get a wedding invite to their wedding.
Does that count?

Not so sure. It is strange though, b/c if a second date and there wasn't a third, it would have been a very short marriage.

 

[OboeGal]

My best friend, who was 12 years older than me, was made without her consent into a beard, and it hurt her enough that she never remarried or even seriously dated ever again.

She grew up in a very religious and conservative household, so when she met and began dating a young man in her college years, back in the very early 70s, she didn't think anything of the fact that he didn't pressure her into anything beyond holding hands - she thought he was being a "proper Christian gentleman" who respected her. They married and settled one state away, with both starting positions as schoolteachers, but 6 months later, she moved back into her parents' home and filed for divorce, which finalized without her ever seeing him again. In all the remaining years of her life, as we became friends, she refused to ever tell me what happened to cause her to leave, and just would say, "he wasn't right." Eventually I asked her mother, and it turns out that once married, he refused to have any kind of physical intimacy with her. Decades after she divorced him and after he had remarried and moved back to our area to take a different teaching position, she was horrified to see in the local news that he ended up on trial and convicted for having sexual relationships with multiple underage teen male students.

Now, the extra wrinkle is that my friend was very, very......androgynous. There was little feminine about her, especially in her speech and mannerisms, other than that she liked "sparkly" things. (I often found myself wondering if she was actually LGBTQ+, due to that plus some other indicators that I won't go into here, but in firm denial due to her upbringing, and many of her other non-religious friends and colleagues wondered the same.) So, I firmly believe what happened is that her ex-husband assumed that she was lesbian based on her demeanor and decided, without ever actually discussing it ahead of time, that it would be fine for them to marry for social "appearances" and that she would never be interested in intimacy or care about whatever extramarital activities he pursued, nor he about any activities on her part.

In any case, the whole experience was traumatic enough, and eroded her sense of trust and her confidence in her attractiveness so seriously, that she never did any more than go on a handful of dates for the rest of her life.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

Matata, so out of touch, frantically pounds the keyboard searching for "beard". Is it the same as a sock? Nope. Is it something related to all the websites that google yielded about men complaining they are discriminated against because they have beards (facial hair)? Nope. Scrolling down the search page faster than the speed of light and AHA, there it is, a fake companion. Why don't they call it a hairpiece or a wig since those are clearly fake ?

Matata slowly retreats back into her cave.

thank you
thought we were talking about facial hair too

 

[pearlsngems]

Me too-- only context helped me figure out what the discussion was about.

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

Me too-- only context helped me figure out what the discussion was about.

it seems a very sad discusssion
my other half's ex inlaws, the dad, everdently a very nice man was in the closet, so the mum want out and had affairs because she was needing attention, i dont think this was a beard situation as the mum didnt know before marrage
she had a child to another man (they did have 3 children together) he waited until after the baby was born (in was the late 60's) so the baby had the same last name as his siblings, then he divorced her after cutting the bed in half with a chain saw
He was a very good father in law by all accounts and a good dad and grandad
just a different time
much nicer now days that people can be who they are

 

[YadaYadaYada]

When I saw the title I was thinking that women were growing out facial hair as a new trend. Hey 90’s cargo wide leg jeans are coming back so anything is possible!

 

[monarch64]

When I was in college, a friend set me up with a guy from her hometown. She’d known him for her entire life and he had had girlfriends. When he and I started dating, he was very quick to introduce me to both sets of his parents who were divorced, and he kind of “love-bombed” me with very elaborate, romantic dates. Like rose petals spread on a blanket on the floor when he rented the movie Bed of Roses for us to watch. Very fancy dinners at nicer restaurants than most college guys could afford. And he never pushed for sex… I forget why we ended up parting ways, but a couple years later I got a call from my friend who set us up, and she said “Chad is in Miami living his best life as a drag queen.” I was less shocked than I probably should have been. :/

Several years ago I lived next door to a woman who had been previously married for 12 years to a man who was gay. He wasn’t open about it, but she knew, and they just lived as a heteronormative couple until he met someone and divorced her.

I’m also quite convinced my local jeweler is a gay man living as a straight person married to a woman. I don’t care one way or another how adults choose to live, but this guy is a conservative and gives a boat load of money to organizations that actively do things that are anti-LGBTQ+. And his entire sales staff (no exaggeration) is comprised of LGBTQ+ folks. It’s just a little surreal every time I go in there knowing what I know of him politically.

I’ve known lots of others over the years but they are messy situations where the wife or gf isn’t aware or purposely ignores certain things.

 

[AllAboardTheBlingTrain]

I know two situations that might fit the bill of what you’re looking for… India as a society has made leaps and bounds in LGBT acceptance but it is still difficult to be anything other than cis and straight publicly.

Both arranged marriage situations (but modern arranged marriage, where there’s relative freedom of choice to meet, date, say yes/no, you’re just introduced by your parents).

In the first case, I knew the girl (a friend of a friend). She met this guy, they dated for around 2 months before getting engaged, engagement lasted around 6 months. This entire time he never pushed her to have sex or even touch sexually at all, saying that he thought it would be more respectful of their religion to wait until they were married. After they were married, he tried to consummate the marriage but couldn’t (if you get what I mean). She was initially very supportive (thinking it was religious trauma), but after some time he started lashing out at her saying it was because she wasn’t attractive enough for him. Matters came to a head when seven months after their marriage (still unconsummated) she came home early and found him in bed with someone else of the male persuasion.

The other case I know is a friend of mine who again met a girl through his parents. They were together all-total around 15 months before the wedding. She told him she wanted to wait for sex until the wedding night but was open to fool around before that - which they did on several occasions. Once they were married though, she flatly refused any sexual contact at all, including things they’d already done and even kissing, like she was repulsed by him. They went for some form of counselling as well, but it wasn’t successful and they separated within the year. We weren’t sure if she was asexual or a lesbian, but either way, it was a bait and switch.

 

[nala]

I just saw this thread title and thought it was a beard…for a certain incident that will go down in history but for now, some very powerful People know what teachers and students go thru daily.
I realized after this thought that the thread is a day old.

 

[ShinyPink]

I've known so many! I had various friends in college who were gay but were planning to find a woman and get married some day to have kids. Marriage back then was man-woman and gays couldn't adopt. I must say, only a blind and deaf woman could marry them and not know!
My mom knew a lot of people in Hollywood or had friends in the business. SO many beards there, especially back in the day.
A fabulous book, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, has this as a part of the story.

 

[Snowdrop13]

About 30 years ago, I accompanied a gay friend to a couple of events. This was before his family were really understanding or comfortable with his “gayness” (not really accepted in small town U.K. in those days). Funnily enough, I met my husband at one of those parties!

 

[caf]

This is what I thought about when your post appeared. Seinfeld episode The Beard - Season 6 Episode 15. Julia Louis Dreyfus is masterful!

 

[monarch64]

This is what I thought about when your post appeared. Seinfeld episode The Beard - Season 6 Episode 15. Julia Louis Dreyfus is masterful!

That’s so funny; I saw the clip from the balcony not too long ago! She is great. Elaine was always my favorite character on the show.