It started as a goof, a prank, just one of those amusing gestures that let the world know you don't take yourself too seriously. You already had a full beard. All you had to do was shave—just not shave it all. Besides, it was staging a comeback, popping up on the cool-guy circuit of video directors and broadband pioneers and those kids who cobble together a living by being in the right place with the right people. It would be fun to anticipate the curve, even if you weren't totally committed. Like I said, it was just a goof.

"It's horrible," said my wife. "It's got to go." To her the mustache was not a joke worth telling. She ran through the obvious types: firemen, porn stars, infielders. "You look like Mike Schmidt," she said sternly, "but dorkier, like Weird Al." That shook me. But how bad was it? While I was picturing John Newcombe, was the world seeing Ned Flanders? Surely I looked more like Magnum than Higgins.

I hoped the mustache would give me a swarthy, menacing look. It worked for Saddam Hussein. But instead of adding a whiff of danger, my mustache just looked mismatched, like Richie Cunningham with a nose ring.

Beyond this obsession with how it looked came the responsibility of upkeep. It requires constant cleaning. You'll find nothing delectable about the scallop bisque you had for lunch after it's been ripening under your nose for a few hours. Of course, there were advantages. A tickling sensation beneath the nostrils tells you it's time to trim your nose hair. It's not much, but it beats having a friend tell you. And there's no limit to what friends will tell you.

One said I looked like "a '70s-era-social-studies teacher." And he was right. I thought back to elementary school, when all the men under 40 who worked the chalkboards and organized kickball games wore mustaches. But where did it start? Was it the Beatles, whose Fu Manchus made their debut on Sergeant Pepper? Or Mark Spitz, whose image, replete with Speedo and gold medals, was splashed around so carelessly in the summer of '72? After the shaggy '60s, the '70s man felt naked (and square without some facial hair, so as the beard got shaved and the hair got shorter, the mustache got bigger. All the '70s studs had one—Burt Reynolds, Charles Bronson, Tom Selleck, Isaac from The Love Boat. But when disco fever subsided and the great, bug envoys came to a halt, the mustache disappeared.

Now the mustache is back, if only for a limited run. Even _The Wall Street Journal _noticed. It gave front-page space to a story about the mustache's unlikely resurgence and a model named Eugene Hutz, whose big, bushy 'stache was the talk of the last European men's shows.

Off the runway, my friends have tried to endorse the mustache's broad cultural significance. "That's the most subversive thing you can do," one friend told me. One jus shook his head. "Dude," he said, "it's rad."

But for all the opinions, no one uttered the phrase "I think it looks good." It's staunchest opponents were women, led by my wife, who found comfort only in the one-liners. "Yep," she quipped, "picked him up at spring training." My sister gave me that sad look women reserve for those acts of such profound stupidity that only a man can perform. One attractive woman thought it was cute, but it was last call and there had been an open bar.

Thank God I'm not single. The one thing I know about the type of women I like is that they don't like men with mustaches. This much is true: Educated, attractive, sophisticated American women under 40 do not now, and probably never will, like mustaches. In their opinion, mustaches rank right up there with gold chains and long weekends in Atlantic City. And somehow there's comfort in knowing that they still know best.

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