Banned!

I am by nature, a helpful person. I didn’t always realize this, but as I’ve gotten older it’s become fairly obvious. When someone needs help and I know something about the topic, or can easily assist in resolving the issue due to a particular skill, I immediately offer. The realization which was so long in coming is that nothing good ever comes of it. I’m serious. There’s no personal satisfaction, the person receiving the help will argue with me, or I’m drawn in to a protracted situation where I do not belong, or someone ends up angry. It happens all the time! It happened again today.

I’m 4 months or so into my year-long attempt to improve my beard using minoxidil. I don’t expect it to work, because I’ve done it before–for 7 months–and got nothing, but I began thinking I just didn’t give it long enough and decided to try again. In order to stay motivated I joined a Facebook Group dedicated to guys using Minox to improve their beards. As you might expect from such a Facebook Group, most of the posts are guys showing off their beards, asking for input about their beards, asking questions that are probably addressed in the FAQ and some beard related humor. I’ve been trying to figure out how to get the posts out of my feed because I’ve unfollowed almost everyone and most of the accounts I used to peruse. So Minox Beard group posts made up a significant portion of my feed.

Anyway, last night someone posted a picture and indicated that Minox didn’t work for them. He was disappointed, and the comments were generally telling him to persevere.  It’s a support group after all. But, because of my aforementioned helpful nature, I felt I could offer something different: empathy. Because it doesn’t work for everyone. That’s just a fact. No amount of wishful thinking will make it so. In fact, minoxidil is only approved for regrowing scalp hair lost due to the genetic condition that causes male pattern baldness. That’s where all the research has been done, what all the studies focused on, and where the evidence lies. And that evidence clearly shows that the majority of men do NOT respond to treatment. And that’s on the scalp, regrowing hair that once existed. There’s no real research for use on the face to grow NEW facial hair where none existed in the past.

So that’s how I decided to help this young man. By telling him not to be too disappointed, since there are more non-responders than responders. Well, someone other than the man I was helping jumped in to argue with me. He kept restating my post and asking me to affirm it’s what I meant. I made it clear that the studies show a minority of men respond to minoxidil treatment. Everyone in that group knows minox is not approved for the face and that there are no studies supporting its use. I pointed that out when he kept asking about the studies; i.e. that there aren’t any for facial hair use. We can only make a logical best guess that it will be similar to the results on scalp hair. He accused me of spreading false information, and since he’s an Admin on the site, said he was Muting me for 7 days. I did a literal LOL at my desk when I read that, and sarcastically replied, “oh boy.” He then threatened to ban me, so I told him I’d do him one better and leave the group. He then promptly banned me.

So once again, my attempts to offer solace, to render aid, to assist my fellow human ended with nothing good coming from it. This has happened enough now that I believe I will add it to my Joeisms. I don’t remember the 5 I once had, but I remember a few:

Joeism #1: Take care of you. If you don’t, who will?

Joeism #2: Assume everyone is full of shit until proven otherwise.

Joeism #3: Remove your expectations of others, and you won’t be disappointed.

and now

Joesim #4: Don’t offer to help anyone unless asked. Nothing good will come from it.

One good thing did come from the experience though: I don’t have to figure out how to get their posts out of my news feed.