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Interview with News Net Nebraska
October 20, 2010 | 
Author Interview! I was recently interviewed for News Net Nebraska about the Domesticated Bachelor. I enjoyed sitting down with Maureen Wurtz to discuss bloggy things and was flattered they asked. They even managed to edit out some dorkiness (and the part where my head spun around). My brother Jay has threatened to do an Auto Tune mix of the interview, which would be nifty, but this is not it. And no, Kyle, this doesn’t mean I have a multi-book deal (though that would be swell. Stuff’s written & eBooks are pending, but more suffering is required.). Until then, check out the video & maybe go back & reread 120 posts. While you’re at it, sign up for free blog updates and visit our sponsors. Oh, and watch for an upcoming celebration of our 6-digit page-views (hint: higher than 99,999). And do the hokey pokey.
Here’s the link: http://www.newsnetnebraska.org/entertainment/the-domestication-of-males/
Related Blogs
Year One of the DB
About a month ago, on Groundhog Day even (which is also my birthday & I did see my stupid shadow), the DB celebrated its 1 year anniversary of bloggage, by not posting a darn thing. In 12 months I’ve had awesome readership with 72,000 page hits and have posted 95 Theses (I mean posts- this is #96)! I’ve posted parts of my book The Domesticated Bachelor and have added several new parts, like bachelor profiles of such guys as Sherlock Holmes, Vincent Van Gogh, and Mad King Ludwig.
But I’m still not a Domesticated Bachelor.
I made a blueprint for becoming a DB called “11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor” in which I developed a checklist for how I, and other dudes, could be more awesome, drop the self-loathing, and suck less. It hasn’t happened yet. I’m not domesticated. I’m still a half-wild ManBearPigGoatDude. I could maybe check off half the items on that list (with some stretching), but still feel sub par (though I guess sub par is actually
ManBearPig from South Park
good if you’re talking golf, but I’m not). There’s still work ahead for a failed perfectionist with ADD & sloth. I’ll reach my DB goal yet or make a fool of myself trying (ooh, success on one count).
In the meantime, there will be more shameful bloggage and I’ll keep trying to improve myself in great acts of futility. If you’re new to this site (or haven’t yet read), check out the posts listed in the right hand column. Under the list of the most recent posts, there’s a list of the most popular posts, including some of my favorites like Logan’s Run and Population Control, Sound of Music Death Match!!! Liesl v Maria, Celebrity Crushes: The Girl Next Door, and GOOGLE-Stalking the Ex.
Thanks for your awesome readership and feedback and I look forward to another great year of the Domesticated Bachelor!
Jonathan Perry
Happy February Birthday to my mom who had a big birthday this year on February 10! Love you mom!
The secret word is futility.
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Domesticated Bachelor RESOLUTIONS For 2010
Happy New Year and junk! 2008 and 2009 were great years for me. I made swell strides in personal improvement: bought a house, changed jobs for the first time in 9 years, lost almost 40 pounds, finished writing a book, started this blog, and dated a few good-looking and fascinating (if unhappy) women. 2010 is promising and I hope to take a hearty chunk out of its hopeful offerings. Here’s my (public) list of resolutions for the new year (the private list may or may not include shameful notions like ‘Online Dating’, ‘Invisalign’, and job advancement. Yes, the public list is shameful, too.).
- Get below 200 pounds for the first time since just after college (Allow for muscle tone & abs. If there’s good muscle tone and a nice 6 pack, then just over 200 pounds is fine and not bad for a 6 footer built like a linebacker. Or me.). I could totally do it by summer. Maybe.
- Get more sleep. Unless I’m hanging out with attractive women until the wee hours, there’s no reason I should exhaust myself and make my brain dull and eyes red (though bloodshot brings out the blue in my eyes). This may mean more hopeful cocktails of Melatonin & Tylenol PM. Of course insomnia is insomnia.
- Save more and invest more. $$ x $$= $$$$$$
- Be more confident & fearless. Don’t care what people think (like the unhappy, uber-critical, pretty good-looking girl-woman I was sorta kinda not dating for 6 months who teased me a few times for not being manly enough. Man, I miss her.). Also, don’t overshare feelings, especially with uber-critical women.
- Be more manly & rugged. (ok, yeah. So I’d like to be a bit more dude-ish, but not in an obvious, obnoxious, pandering to the critics sort of way). I’ll still listen to the Pet Shop Boys.
- Do one major home project: new siding, update a bathroom or the kitchen (by ‘do’, I mean pay someone skilled to ‘do’ this project).
- Do 2 minor home projects: trim, doorway casing, paint stuff.
- Plant at least one new tree on my property. Front yard 1st. Maybe a Birch or Japanese Maple. Maybe both. Also an evergreen. That sounds like 3.
- Do some landscaping. Flagstone walkway. Sunken garden in the low corner of the backyard. Junk like that.
- Learn a manly skill or 2, like wiring a new light fixture or building a built-in bookcase. Or join a fantasy football league. It shouldn’t be as exhausting as the daily fantasy baseball league I was in for 2 years.
- Do more cool adventurous sorts of things: whitewater rafting, backpacking, large hill climbing, long trail hiking. Canoeing the boundary waters (if there are showers).
- Be more sociable & less reclusive. More Jay Gatsby, less Ted Kaczynski. Also, make friends.
- Date more frequently & less stressfully. More irons in the fire reduce the chance that a single iron will burn you. Or something dumb.
- Finish writing one of the books I’ve been puttering around in. I’ve been chipping away at 3 or 4 books, but get distracted easily. One project has 22 pages of notes, but only 7 pages of written product. What’s up with that?
- Resume writing music. Finish some songs. Maybe learn to use the Pro Tools recording software I bought in ’08 right before I bought the house. (If ever tempted to write a song for a girl again, sleep on it a few days first and be sure it’s finished and not incredibly dorky. Or containing dark humor. Dangit.)
- Waste less time. This includes spending less pointless time online or wasting too much time on wishy-washy women, however much you dig them and can’t get over them.
- If all else fails, follow the 11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor.
(Again, I am not actually a Domesticated Bachelor. I just play one in my mind.)
What resolutions do you goats have for 2010?
Related Reading:
11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor
Unrelated Awesome Reads:
Logan’s Run & Population Control
Sound Of Music Death Match!!! Liesl v Maria
Celebrity Crushes: The Girl Next Door
Which Is Your Type? A Pseudo-Cosmo Quiz
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Posted in 11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor, bachelor pad, decorating, garden, health, house, investing, tools, tree, weight-loss | 
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Holiday Hosting Survival Guide with PM Chin
I'd like to go to this party.
Are you hosting a holiday party? Were you tricked? Whether or not you were tricked into hosting a party or offered to do it of your own volition in a dark moment of madness, you’re doing it. You should be prepared.
Socializing and throwing shindigs are key parts to the 11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor (Steps #s 8 & 9: Proper Socialization/Throw Parties) and it’s always nice to entertain your friends, but you might be overwhelmed and not really know where to start.
To ease you into the netherworld of party hosting, PM Chin from the blog PM Chin Speaks has provided some tips to help simplify the process of party prep in her post Holiday Host and Hostess Survival. In it she shares stress-minimizing ideas for preparing your place for the attacking guest hoards.
Tips include: pre-party cleaning, bathroom necessities, limiting menu options, and cultivating assistance.
Update: PM Chin has added a 2nd part to her hosting post: Holiday Hosting Part 2.
New tips include: music, menu, gifts, and shopping.
Check it out and stay tuned for upcoming tips from PM Chin.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
Related Reading:
Holiday Host & Hostess Survival by PM Chin
Holiday Hosting Part 2 by PM Chin
11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #s 8 & 9. Proper Socialization/Throw Parties
How NOT To Decorate The Bachelor Pad
Unrelated Awesome Reads:
See the links in the right column: recent & most popular
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11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor-The Complete Guide
by Jonathan B. Perry
Over the last few months I’ve enumerated how to become a Domesticated Bachelor (even though I’m not one). In trying to improve myself, I’ve discovered some key things that might help me to be a better man or at least quantify my failure. The following links explore these steps to becoming a Domesticated Bachelor. I’ve made this handy guide and gathered them together in one master list for your convenience, joy, and mockery. Click each link for deeper exploration.
First, what is a Domesticated Bachelor? Here we define our boy, the Domesticated Bachelor, and give his fake Latin name.
The Steps:
1. The Bachelor Pad-Obtain a nice abode to which you can invite people. Maybe a woman-type person (not really a hermaphrodite, unless you really want to).
2. The Right Wardrobe-Wear non-tent-like clothes. Lounge jackets. Suits. Wooden shoes. Red dickies. Dress well. Look nice.
3. Shape Up Fatty-Don’t be fat or unhealty. Be well groomed. Increase your self-esteem. Get a Slim Goodbody suit. White-person afro is optional.
4. Learn To Cook-Make omelettes. Feed yourself. Feed others. Don’t date your mom.
5. Travel The World-Travel the world for the obnoxious stories. Impress people, you jerk. Oh, maybe test travel with a ladyfriend (separate hotel rooms, of course).
6. Be A Jack-Of-All-Trades-Be decent at lots of stuff. Become a contestant on Jeopardy! Be a Smart Alec.
7. Master Something-Be really good at one thing. Maybe get a Masters Degree. Figure out where that apostrophe goes. Then tell me.
8. & 9. Proper Socialization/Throw Parties-Avoid becoming a hermit like Ted Kaczynski. It’s good to know people & meet them & entertain them. Don’t kill them. Bad goat.
10. Collect The Right Toys-Find the things that use up your time & decorate your place. Buy huge electronics through Skymall.
11. Get A Good Job-The super job enables the life & the stuff & the self-worth. The other stuff feeds from this.
The secret word is dominion.
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11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #11. Get A Good Job
by Jonathan B. Perry
We’ve already covered the first 10 of the 11 steps to becoming a Domesticated Bachelor (the links are peppered throughout this post and at the bottom). Now, we’ve perhaps arrived at the main thing; get a good job! A good job helps to pay for keeping a bachelor domesticated. It’s the glue that holds the airplane model together and sticks to your fingers for days. It allows the bachelor to keep his fine mud-hut, drive his groovy car into a tree, wear his non-tent-like clothes, aimlessly travel the world, buy his mindlessly distracting toys, and throw those terrible parties to which no one shows up (grand hoohahs). Yes, you must get a good job to be truly domesticated.
Having a job you like is good for personal happiness and satisfaction and can affect your attractiveness to the opposite sex. This is most useful. If a woman has to choose between 2 guys who are otherwise equal, it would seem that the better job could push one guy over the top. That might sound cynical and, perhaps, not always true, but we’re working the odds. It makes sense because a higher income earner is better able to provide for his family. Smart women want to be provided for and their mothers have prepared them for this.
If education can help you get a non-sucky pseudo-professional job, get that education or training and move up the ladder. Maybe study for a Masters or professional degree. Take night classes if necessary. Ultimately, we’ll have to work for 40-50 years, unless we get really really rich and can retire sooner (or die earlier), so it‘s important to like your job for peace of mind and/or personal satisfaction. It helps to quash that dangerous self-loathing (I’m hoping).
So, there you have it, the 11 steps to becoming a Domesticated Bachelor. I meet only a few of the standards, so I wouldn’t be considered a domesticated bachelor. Until recently I lived in a frightening apartment for several years (just bought a decent house, but it‘s super messy), don’t socialize very much with the humans, have never thrown a party (grand hoohah), cook very little (mostly sandwiches and spaghetti), have a less than stellar job, I’m only a jack of a few trades, I’m not my college svelteness, though I do have some decent clothes (could be better), and have an acceptable car and some distracting toys. I’ve even traveled overseas a few times, just to be annoying. Domestication is still a bit out there for me, but that‘s ok. For the moment. This list is sort of my own personal set of challenges and guidelines and maybe soon I can start checking more stuff off the list. For now, I’m not so much a Domesticated Bachelor, as I am a half-wild goat down on the farm chewing something shiny.
Check out the list below for yourself.
Related Reading:
What Is A Domesticated Bachelor?
#s 8 & 9. Proper Socialization/Throw Parties
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11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #10. Collect The Right Toys
by Jonathan B. Perry
A Domesticated Bachelor has plenty of swell toys that are both useful and/or attractive and possibly purchased through SkyMall. These wondrous devices will serve to cram your home with shiny joy and blinky functionality, entertaining you and your bored guests for days, perhaps hours on end. Certainly, filling your empty life with deep deep meaning.
1. Car- Of course, you must start off your acquisitions right by getting a shiny motor vehicle that suits your style and with which you can fashionably crash into a tree. Nothing says domestication like a nicely totaled car. Go and buy yourself a fine GPS for that stylishly crashed auto of yours so you can see which way you should have gone. My car actually looks like an old man’s car, possibly one my grandparents might own, and my friend Darrin teases me about it, but it‘s really the nicest car I‘ve had. Perhaps one day I‘ll get something sportier and more obnoxiously mid-life crisis like his. Yeah, take that Darrin.
2. TV Stuff (Entertainment Center)- Build up your entertainment center with an expensive, yet breakable flat screen Hi-Def television, viewable from only one angle. Get the surround sound system so you can freak out your cat with all the spastic directional sound. Add a DVD and a TiVo for good measure.
3. Stereo- Find yourself a dandy stereo system (hi-fi) that works well with hearing aids so you can entertain your grandparents with Metallica or the Beastie Boys (your grandparents will be over a lot to borrow your car). If it has an attachment for your iPod, you‘re golden. Find a turntable for your parents’ old records and maybe get some of those classic Bossa Nova albums that really define the bachelor pad genre. If you reach 8-track, you’ve gone too far.
4. Phone- Buy a Blackberry or an iPhone. See if I care. You’ll need to be able to text your mom hourly or have something to goof around with while on important business calls (and for driving into trees). Upgrade these things regularly.
5. Games- Rock a sweet gaming system (Wii, Xbox, whatever the other one is called) or a billiard table so you can get nothing done ever into the wee hours. Maybe find a fancy dart board and post a photo of your boss on it (my boss is great, so it’d be someone else’s boss).
6. Tools- It’s also important to acquire handyman equipment to decorate your garage impressively. Nothing says ‘handyman’ like a full tool cabinet. And it impresses the ladies. Get your cutting, drilling, screwing, banging stuff ready for those workshop days that will never really happen because you‘re playing games and watching tv.
If you have friends, which I have in the past, bring them over to use your gadgets. Show off those doohickeys. Drag out the time machine. Change some college dating choices. In this way you can also become influential in your group because your friends will develop techno-lust and see you as the gatekeeper to tech-Narnia or something. They’ll seek you out for advice on such purchases and you may attain a certain guru status, just as my brother and his wife have for me with their endless knowledge and supply of mindless doodads.
Yes, the more useless stuff you own, the more hipster points you’ll gain and the more domesticated you’ll grow to be. You may be poorer, but at least you‘ve done your part to support the fragile economy. And that’s really giving back. If nothing else, these items will keep you busy and ensure that you remain a bachelor for a good long time.
The secret word is hi-fi.
Related Reading:
#s 8 & 9. Proper Socialization/Throw Parties
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11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #s 8 & 9. Proper Socialization/Throw Parties
by Jonathan B. Perry
Some people, myself included, are fine with spending all their free time alone without seeing other humans for days and days. What peace. But like the guy stuck on the island alone for years who forgot how to speak his mother tongue, spending all your time alone will make you wild and incapable of properly socializing with other humans, possibly unable to ask out women (in case you ever had that down). It‘s said, ‘no man is an island‘. It is, therefore, useful to maintain a circle of friends with whom you visit and pal around and who don‘t quote stuff like ‘no man is an island‘.
In fact, if you’re particularly adventurous, you must take that further step toward socialization and enlarge your circle and go to those royal gatherings to which you’ve been invited or even host your own grand shindigs. Being sociable is good for happiness and longevity and is usually the only way to meet members of the opposite sex, unless you’re really into that whole online dating thing where you lock yourself up in front of your computer for weeks in order to woman shop. I suppose you could meet people at work or while grocery shopping at the farmers market for organic brie for fondue, but that might be weird. And a little random.
Throwing parties or dinners or shindigs (or grand hoohahs) is one of the peaks of domesticity. First, it proves you have friends willing to come over to your mess (congratulations), second, it can only be achieved if you have an appropriate place for people to visit (you rock!), and third, it exhibits your excellent hosting skills (umm…). Whether you host a small dinner party or a grand shindig, you’re out there saying “I am an interesting and responsible person, able to bring diversion and possibly joy to other humans. Also, I can trick people into liking me or at least pretending to like me long enough for me to get joy from it.” In this way you’ll become the cog of the culture wheel, moving things far beyond simple existentialism to a higher level of super-culture. Good for you. This is also a great time to try out some of those special edible experiments on your very own guinea pig guests who can promptly advise you to never cook that stuff again.
Have you hosted a dinner party? Thrown a GRAND HOOHAH? Tell us about it!
Read the first 7 steps:
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11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #7. Master Something
by Jonathan B. Perry
In the previous step we discussed how being a Jack of All Trades plays well in the quest to become a Domesticated Bachelor, and possibly getting you on Jeopardy!. It can be kind of fun fiddling around in all those different areas, having a good time, broadening your horizons, though only slightly because you have ADD. But there comes a time for buckling down. Hitting the bricks. Getting serious. Beyond being a Jack of All Trades is becoming a Master of Something. If you really spend the time and hone your skills for your own personal satisfaction, and because I told you to, you‘ll find yourself mastering wonderful things and even yourself. I totally just sounded like a bad self-help book. Hoarding knowledge is swell!
Master something by getting a Master’s Degree! See how that worked? Mastery through a Master’s. The lower level degree is, of 
course, the Bachelor’s Degree. Yeah, it’s only a little insulting. There’s not even a Bachelorette’s Degree, let alone a Spinster’s Certification (there actually might be for people who use spindles). Anyway, you don’t necessarily need a degree to be masterful and full of mastery. Boy Scouts get patches all the time for honing their camping and Greco-Roman wrestling in the woods skills. You might enjoy practicing your mastered specialty as a trade, like popsicle stick cuckoo clock making or faux llama sweater knitting. Open a shop…in Estes Park. Hire some good-looking shopkeepers. Date them. Be sued for harassment. File bankruptcy. Retrain. Master something else.
If you’re already fairly good at woodworking, improve your skills by taking night classes in ironic bookcase building while dressed as Zorro (he makes the sign of disease). Becoming an expert in a subject is
My brother Jay used to make God's Eyes
rewarding, apparently (not that I would know). If you’ve hoarded a lot of knowledge about a subject, you can discuss it at length in an interesting way and people might want to hear what you have to say or ask your advice about it. Or they might stone you, so you may need to know when to hold your tongue, in which case speech or dodgeball classes might come in handy. Or if you make things, you might make special gifts for others, to buy them off: chain mail or God’s Eyes. Even build brick furniture or a ship’s deck for your patio. Or a tree house. Ooh, a tree house!
So, go master something. Or not.
Read the first 6 steps:
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11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #6. Be A Jack Of All Trades
by Jonathan B. Perry
An important part of becoming a Domesticated Bachelor is being a Jack of All Trades. Being a Jack of All Trades isn’t quite the same as being a know it all. Or a jackass, though they can, and often do, overlap. It means being able to function moderately in most broad areas of knowledge. It’s being well rounded, knowing a fair amount about Russian literature, Biblical carpentry, snake oil sales, and Congolese kayak repair, but not being enough of an expert to really excel or do much with that knowledge.
Being a Jack of All Trades still comes in handy because you’d know a little about most subjects and would be able to converse superficially about Congolese politics with your Congolese cleaning-lady before your cultured dinner party starts (she’s the exiled Congolese president‘s estranged goddaughter who’s cleaning your kitchen drain boards) or you could avoid major embarrassment if in a situation that requires minor skills, like changing a golf cart tire near the twelfth hole or planting a row of miniature fruit trees or naming your polo team after a Nabakov novel (the Hammered Lolitas!). You can become a Jack of All Trades by dipping your toe a little in each subject. This is best done by reading the first ten pages or so of several books. Also, you could spend 6 or 7 years in college taking, or at least starting, many courses, perhaps changing your major several times along the way. If you need real help doing any of this stuff in an actual skillful way you can always look up instructions online or buy one of those Dummies/Idiots books. I suspect you might need several.
Best of all, being the Jack of All Trades Dude that you are, you might make a decent Jeopardy! contestant because, even though your knowledge might not be very deep, it’s grown very broad. Broad knowledge is key to excelling in multiple Jeopardy! categories and since there are 13 of them in each game you‘re well on your way. Being on Jeopardy! is a major signifier of intelligence and will help cement your Bachelor Domestication, potentially acting as an aphrodisiac to at least a few disturbed women, especially the cute librarian types best depicted by Shirley Jones in The Music Man. Then you might get to meet Alex Trebek, who’s grown back his mustache, and talk to him about the role of Congolese political art in Russian Orthodox literature while changing a golf shopping cart tire in the middle of your golf-course-dwarf-pomegranate-orchard-cemetery game, where the motto’s always been ‘Play through or die!’ Don’t be too long because the Hammered Lolitas play next.
Read the first 5 steps:
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11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #5. TRAVEL THE WORLD
Family of Bachelors in London
by Jonathan B. Perry
Traveling the world is a key ingredient in that domesticated bachelor soufflé. Not only do you get to stuff a fanny pack of experiences under your belt, but you gain fantastically obnoxious stories to share at your bachelor dinner parties. Even if your trips were miserable or dull as mud and you never want to go back to Anglodutchistankong again, you can at least say you’ve traveled the world and then milk that for a while. This will gain you great favor with the mortals, increasing your level of domestication, and you can proudly proclaim that information on your Facebook page: “Jonathan is drinking goatmilkshakes with the Sherpas and telling jokes in Nepalese before hitting Everest‘s summit. If only Tenzing would quit farting in the tent! LOL!“
Women like to size up a potential traveling companion and can best do it when they know you‘ve traveled, so be sure to talk about it a lot. For instance, if I was really shameless and wanted to present my travel resume, I’d yammer on about my trips to Taiwan, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Wales, and Scotland. And maybe Japan, if I was feeling especially cocky, although I never left the Osaka airport either time. Also, I was only in Austria for the afternoon. Of course, these ladies will want an idea of what sort of stuff you can handle, so it might be good to limit the complaining in your stories and pay special attention to the good stuff.
Then, talk about your future travel ambitions. Work into the conversation that you want to walk the length of the Great Wall to demonstrate the courage of man or paint the big weird statues on Easter Island. This might be attractive to a potential mate because she’ll think, “If I’m with him, we’ll travel the world together.” *sigh*. Don’t be too distracted by the virtuous virtues of travel. The douchey do-gooders will say that travel is important for understanding the world and getting along with other cultures, blah blah blah UN blah blah, but really it’s good for fun experiences, seeing pretty things, and self-aggrandizement. And meeting women. Date-traveling might be interesting.
If you really like to travel, you might consider test traveling with a special lady (with separate rooms, of course). Traveling with the bachelor cousins and uncles is great, but it’s time to try something new. Test out your potential long-term traveling companion and see whether you’d do well as co-travelers or just drive each other batty. Some women travel well, while others just whine well (guys too). Traveling together is like experiencing a relationship in a concentrated form before you’ve added water. Or something. This testing tool is best manifested in the tv show The Amazing Race. There’s lots of travel pressure on The Amazing Race with mental and physical competitions tied into the timed premise. Couples find out all the time that they suck together under fire. Then again, many of those couples grow stronger, overcoming the stresses or realizing they should just never go back to the Sahara for an archeological dig during the summer.
If you learn a language for or on your trip, your hipness is enhanced manifold. If you spend a year or more in another country, you’ll come closest to godhood and will forevermore be an expert in several semi-unrelated, though equally obnoxious, areas. If you haven’t already, you might even meet a special lady-friend while there (this is how my brother met his wife). Of course, you may only get blisters, but even that’s a story. And you just copied my trip to Germany.
11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #4. Learn To Cook
by Jonathan B. Perry
Women seem to like it when a man can cook. It takes some of the cooking responsibility off of her, if you ever get a woman who is willing to cook for you besides your mom, but it can also be useful if you’re preparing a romantic dinner for two (not for your mom). It can really be as easy as learning to cook a few favorite main dishes, some side dishes, and vegetables. Pick a few of your favorites and learn how to cook them from your mom, a cookbook, or from Martha Stewart’s evil website.
You might do well to familiarize yourself with difficult cooking terms, which are usually in a gibberish known as French, as well as measuring items, which often use the metric system you never learned. Learn to sauté, braise, or broil. Know your measuring spoons, cups, and pinches. If you’re feeling cocky, write your own recipes by making variations of other normal dishes with your own special ingredients after having experimented and deciding they‘re not poisonous. Other bachelor friends are good as tasters largely because they have nothing else to do (they‘re also expendable competition, so if they die, there is an upside). I keep reading in men’s magazines that one should know how to make an omelet (and perhaps spell it omelette) and this makes sense because if you have the basics down, you can add whichever ingredients you like (tomatoes, onions, peppers) and adjust for a guest (goat cheese, valium). Keep a fire extinguisher handy.
Not only will these cooking skills be good for romantic meals (again, not your mother), but they’ll come in handy in your bachelor life where you have no one else to cook for you, because you‘re actually a psycho-hermit. I somehow managed to burn my spaghetti noodles this week, so it’s not really looking good. Also, knowing how to cook will be useful if you ever throw a party or host a dinner for a group of friends. Chyeah. As if this would ever happen.
The secret word is metric.
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11 Steps to Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #3. Shape Up, Fatty
by Jonathan B. Perry
My dear chubby bachelor friend, imagine yourself for a moment as a thin man, perhaps even muscular, and you are jogging lithely across verdant meadows with your special womanly someone as bluebirds sing Led Zeppelin around you. Now, envision comfortably going shirtless at the pool in front of friends and strangers, unfazed by your body because of its glorious physique, except for maybe that bad yin and yang tattoo you got one smashed evening. Wouldn’t life be better?
Growing flabby and fat isn’t much of an esteem builder and the huffing and puffing can be blamed on asthma for only so long, which is a shame. I’d show before and after pictures, but of course they’d just be backwards. Being in good shape is finding that sweet spot of healthiness. You’ll be better able to engage in more physical activities in cool places with pretty girls without passing out (like that time in the Rocky Mountains), have the ability to wear select clothing that doesn‘t look hideously stretched or tent-like, gain that ever evasive self-confidence, and be more attractive to the opposite sex (perhaps at the top of the bachelor list). Oh, and you may live longer, too, which comes in handy when it‘s time to use up your retirement money.
If you avoid over-indulging in tasty friedchocolatehamburgermilkshakedogs, enjoin in some moderate exercise a few times a week, possibly doing physical activities with your invisible friends, then you may be able to cut down on the enlargement that most of us succumb to as we age, except of course for those freaks who are always rail-like and/or wraith-like and are hated by everyone else.
Dutch Gymnasts
You might consider joining a sports league or a gym. You can certainly meet women at the gym. So I hear. Though, come to think of it, that might be like meeting women when you’re having the tarter scraped off your teeth. Maybe not your best moment. I suppose that’s why there are women-only gyms.
The secret word is burrito.
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11 Steps to Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #2. The Right Wardrobe
by Jonathan B Perry
After a certain point your mother stopped dressing you and your brothers in matching purple tuxedos and frilly shirts. Finally! Now it’s your own responsibility. Just as your house is an extension of you and your excellent style (and your mortgage company‘s), so is your wardrobe. Whether sporting proto-James Bond slick formal-gadget wear or lounging in your Hugh Hefner meets Austin Powers in the den smoking jackets, how you dress yourself lets the world know what kind of tasteful weirdo you are: formal, casual, Boho-sloppy, goth-undertaker, or sporty (Ludwig’s royal coronation garb was boss). 
The better you look and dress, the less you’ll hate yourself, and people will think more of you, too, because people are superficial and they suck. That old annoying saying, ‘dress for the job you want, not for the job you have‘, works in other areas as well: socializing, dating (those are probably the only areas). Of course, women seem to like it when a guy dresses up. They smell success and responsibility. And clothes make the man, apparently. Go ye therefore and acquire some dashing suits and dress shoes that can be used not just at your job as a daytrader or at church, but while socializing at the corner malt shop with your barber shop quartet. You may even find some swell trademark clothing items to make your own, like the sharp wooden shoes, pocket watches, or red dickies.
The secret word of the day is dickies.
Related Posts:
#s 8 & 9. Proper Socialization/Throw Parties
(Thanks again alphainventions.com/ for the insane hits!)
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11 Steps to Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #1. The Bachelor Pad
by Jonathan B. Perry
Achieving bachelor domestication is akin to arriving at a sort of Nirvana or climbing to the top of an important ladder: corporate, Jacob’s, firetruck. It means you’ve grown up and are semi-functional; a sophisticated adult in spite of yourself. Plumbing the depths of my soul, I have discovered the 11 secret ingredients required to create a domesticated bachelor soufflé. Over the next few weeks we’ll explore those ingredients one by one. It’s more than just a recipe for bachelordom. It’s the key to the black Lamborghini of adult human culture.
1. The Bachelor Pad
Where there’s talk of bachelors, there are whispers of the bachelor pad. Visions of the smooth operator’s Bat Cave dance like sugar plums in the imagination. Lots of high-tech electronics with remote controls, round rotating beds, secret panels, and a wet bar usually figure into the collective picture. It’s a pretty expensive picture, but creating the right bachelor pad is essential to bachelor domestication. It’s where the mood is created, the man is recharged, and MTV’s ‘Cribs’ films stuff.
The pad is an extension of the bachelor, and where you live reflects your unique style and background, whether a condo, nouveau mud hut, ranch house, or an underground bunker where you may or may not die with Eva Braun. Of course, you’ll decorate this special haven according to your highly refined tastes: French provincial, gothic hunter, dojo wannabe, or packrat. The better your pad, the more relaxed you’ll become and the better you’ll feel about that whole being alive as a non-loser thing.
It becomes easier to invite friends over if you have a clean and attractive place that doesn’t stink of feet and mold. In fact, if you’re particularly chuffed about your man pad (that sounds a little weird), you’ll want to drag folks over all the time. The supreme goal is that at some point one of your female acquaintances might become particularly impressed by you and your swell joint and want to spend more time there, whether decorating it with large doilies or smelly pink soaps or just herself or perhaps letting her ultra-attractive friends know about you and your well-appointed situation. This is a good thing.
The secret compound word of the day is spaceage.
Related Reading:
How NOT To Decorate The Bachelor Pad
11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #6. Be A Jack Of All Trades
11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor: #5. Travel the World
11 Steps: # 3. Shape Up, Fatty
11 Steps: #2. The Right Wardrobe
Bachelor Step #10: Collect the Right Toys
$15 Million Ultimate Bachelor Pad
Tenuously Related Reading:
Logan’s Run & Population Control
Sound Of Music Death Match!!! Liesl v Maria
Celebrity Crushes: The Girl Next Door
Which Is Your Type? A Pseudo-Cosmo Quiz
Subscribe to the Domesticated Bachelor through RSS or link to one of the buttons below! Do it!
