I grow a beard and my friends step back

I just finished reading "A Moment I Will Never Forget" here, and it nudged something loose in me. I retired last spring after fifty years teaching in Bursa, and over the last year I let my beard grow and started dressing more simply. It was small at first, a longer coat, a plain cap, fewer ties. The odd thing is how some old friends now talk to me like I became a different, stricter person overnight. One left my last message on read, another joked in a way that cut quieter than usual. I miss the easy afternoons in the tea garden. Has anyone else felt their closest people change when their appearance changed?