I Was Addicted to Hair Transplant Consultations
I would never have confessed to another man what I was going through. But by sheer virtue of being in the same room together, we’d disclosed something to each other; silent brothers in the same lonely war. Among them, I felt normal and lucid. It was the closest thing I had to a support group. Sitting on a heinous mustard-yellow sofa beneath a framed Lichtenstein knockoff, tapping my foot in time with the middle-aged man with a horseshoe hairline reading a magazine, I felt held. The staff at hair transplant clinics is usually great too. Though almost always helmed by a man, these offices often employ beautiful women as receptionists and assistants. My first consultation in Dallas introduced me to a Russian woman in a white lab coat who sat me down in a chair, grabbed a fat marker, and drew a line that cleaved my forehead roughly in half. Such hairlines do naturally occur, though most typically in chimpanzees. She held up a mirror. “Is this what you want?” she asked. “No?” I guessed. …
