Perceive or Real Need?

On 8/14/05, I blogged about the importance of our physical appearance– proper hygiene, good grooming and a sense of fashion, as several ingredients for career growth.

However, because of a discriminating and highly competitive society, I have observed that people can take this a little farther. For example, I had my haircut last week and because I appear to have a receding hairline (though my wife said I looked more attractive with it ), I received a sales pitch for a hair growing potion, advise on treatments and hair transplants.

But is this a perceive or a real need? Do we now have a society with open discrimination against people with HIV (hair is vanishing) or those with HIV are just self conscious?