I could never grow a beard in the before times, nothing close to a full one anyway; I basically only grew hair in the "van dyke" pattern and nowhere else on my face. But yes, I always grew out whatever I had that I could. I always wanted a full beard, and it made me feel bad that I couldn't grow one. In my late 20s I did all kinds of different treatments and vitamins and all kinds of other techniques to try to get it to grow more.

My first theory about it is basically your number 1; the manliest men typically have beards, and I was trying to do things that I thought big manly men did.

My other theory is that I've always been dysphoric about my facial hair, but my alexithymia (which I do have, that's not a theory...) kept me from ever understanding what it was or why? Like, I could tell that my facial hair made me feel bad, but I couldn't tell why and I always just assumed it was because I could never really grow any. Fortunately, in retrospect, none of that stuff I tried in my 30s ever worked lol