1. Your beard growth probably didn't start deliberately, it probably started from laziness.
"Are you growing a beard?"
"Ah no, I've just been too lazy to shave this week" – you in the early days.
2. But after a week or so of not-really-shaving, you started to grow quite attached to your stubbly face.
Image: Kevin Winter / Getty
3. And before long you were a beard person – it just makes you look so much better.
Image: Deedle-Dee Productions
Why did you accept your stupid bald face for such a long time?
4. As soon as you decided you were committed to a beardy face, you went out and bought a decent trimmer.
5. After a while of having a beard you start to forget what your actual face looks like.
The beard is just part of your face now.
6. And you get scared to shave it off, because you're certain you'll look about 12.
Image: Hughes Entertainment
7. There's probably one little bit of your face where, for some reason, your beard won't grow.
Patchiness is the devil.
8. You occasionally get that one stray hair that goes the wrong way for some reason, and tickles your nostril all day until you can get rid of it.
Image: BBC
If you don't have a shaver to hand you can pluck it, but it hurts like a bitch.
9. You hardly need ID any more – the beard is your ID.
Image: JOE
10. People with beards always get asked the same boring questions, like whether you condition it.
Image: Deedle-Dee Productions
Do you really care?
11. And whether you get food stuck in it.
Yeah there's actually a family of live birds living in here right now too, mate.
12. Although to be fair, eating something like a sloppy burger with a lot of sauce can get pretty sticky.
13. You constantly find yourself idly stroking and twiddling with it – having something to fiddle with attached to your face is so convenient.
Image: Paramount Domestic Television
And really satisfying.
14. Once you have a beard, you're guaranteed to get some beard grooming kit-type thing you don't really want from a relative every Christmas until you shave it off.
15. You start appreciating other really good beards you see when you're out and about.
Image: Apatow Productions
And people seem to really like comparing your beard to other people's as well.
16. There's so much satisfaction when you manage to trim in to the perfect shape.
17. But when you slip and fuck it up it feels like the world is about to end (for the bottom half of your face anyway).
"I can fix this, it's fine, just don't make me go back to a beardless nothing-person."
