I turn 35 in November.
As for the hair and the piercings, it's for the attention. Granted this will bring unwanted attention as well, but I don't mind dealing with that, when a byproduct is that lots of wanted attention is also given.
As an example -
Me at Christmas, basically 6 months ago.
And another picture of me a couple of days ago.
So here's thing. As guys, you pretty much don't give a fuck. In the first picture you go "fat guy" and in the second picture you go "idiot/weirdo". Obviously thats a gross generalization on my part, but by and large I imagine that to be the case.
Now, lets say you are a lady, and you are introduced to a group of people that includes both of these guys. Which one are you more likely to talk to? Assume they are both smiling and laughing and seem to be having a good time. I feel like option 2 is just a lot more interesting. Even though they are the same guy. I pride myself on my personality, and so, once I get people talking to me, it tends to go well. The hardest part is initiating that conversation, basically attracting enough interest to engage them. Once that's done though, it's typically smooth sailing.
As a real world example, I was introduced to a girl a couple of weeks ago at a dinner party. I tried to talk to her as she was sitting right next to me, but she was very disinterested. She was nice and polite, but never really looked at me or engaged more than she needed to. I got back from Cali Sunday night, and ran into her while running around Monday. I stopped by a friends house to drop a cable off, and she happened to be there, and she kind of freaked out with "Whoa, that is awesome, is that your real hair, ohh my god, etc etc". I had to tell her she had met me a couple of weeks ago. I was the guy in the hat sitting next to her, minus the piercings. She said something along the lines of "Ohh wow, that's crazy, you just seemed like a normal guy, sorry I didn't remember you, its crazy because I just didn't even really register you, you just seemed so normal." Something like that.
So yeah, am I interested in dating this girl? Not really, no. Would I like to have sex with her? Sure. Do I think my chances of that have just gone from none to likely? Yeah, I kind of do.
So, thats pretty much the point of it, and within 24 hours seems to already be working as intended.