My family and I often do not hold the same interests. I care about world issues, non-fiction books and cereal containing freeze dried berries. I imagine each of these topics would be compelling to my kin if they were the sideburn crisis in Malaysia, Mustache: A Tom Selleck Autobiography, or Kellogg’s Frosted Stubble. I came to this conclusion at my sister’s wedding this weekend, during which the only topic of any interesting to any of my relatives was that I have a beard. Not a walking, talking Beard that drinks too much and hits on the waitress, but a regular beard, made out of hair, on a face.

Some relatives simply made off-the-cuff remarks about how I looked “grizzly,” or imagined me “living in the woods.” Many were more specific, such as babies, who cried at first beard sight. This reaction led other, slightly larger, speaking, 6-10 year old babies to call me “inconsiderate.” Inconsiderate for keeping a beard that offends non-speaking bald creatures who fill diapers with unmentionable things and cry over atrocities like the mismanagement of “nap time.”

Older relatives, many adult, were concerned about my employment status with this thin, stretchy rat glued to my face. They often turned to my girlfriend, Sarah, asking her what she “thought” of the beard. The hope was that Sarah would share their opinion and reinforce the idea that it was not rude, or “inconsiderate,” to ask me about the natural phenomenon of fine, cylindrical filaments gradually increasing on my face.

During any part of what will be referred to as the “Grizzly Man Conversation Showcase,” I would have loved to tell one of these people about a book I’m reading on Deaf culture, or new Blueberry Breeze Special K. I would have also loved to know what any of these relatives think of political issues, new movies, or Blueberry Breeze Special K.

Each relative, though, knew that I could always talk about foreign policy with friends and acquaintances, but that these non-familial individuals would not have the courage to bring up my beard in conversation. They would not care enough to say that it is unbecoming and could prevent me from being attractive to potential employers. If they, the Relative, every one of them, all 40 or 50 of them, did not individually make hilarious jokes about my beard all day and night, no one else would. If they did not openly berate my facial-hair-decision to their children, then no one else under three feet would whine to me about shaving.

More importantly, the accepted norm of a shaved, clean face representing a shaved, clean heart could die with those who hold that belief if elders do not pass this ideal on to future generations. With any luck, the crying babies will remember my face - the brown blur a perpetual, terrifying mystery. And as they silently ponder the dirt or satanic fudge that was willingly left on my cheeks and chin, these babies will know that sighs, eye rolling, and “What was he thinking?” are the Ying to a bearded, unsightly, “What WAS he thinking?” familial Yang.