Loading ...study
28 Fake Questions: Vetting The ‘Love’ Candidates
March 7, 2012 | 
Author
Do you have a ‘love checklist’? Are you firm in what you’re looking for in a significant other? Does it require your girl to be pretty, musical, smart, a fly tap dancer, speak Pig Latin, and cook well in nothing but an apron? Have you ever looked at your list & realized you might be a touch delusional? I’m still in denial about my totally non-existent checklist, but from time to time I’m forced to face reality.
In every election season, there’s a tough vetting process for the candidates. Sometimes it’s accidental vetting, but occasionally the candidates are forthcoming with their quirks. We want someone who fits us. I know many of you guys are dragging your feet on dating or committing because, well, you’re just unsure whether that girl you like has what’s needed to complement your own quirks. In other words, you’re not sure how much like your mom she really is. This fixes that. Just hand her this questionnaire and sit back while she fills in the magic. You’ll know soon enough whether your girl is the perfect cross between Giada, Megan Fox, Natalie Wood, and your mom. Also, don’t be surprised if she high-tails it out of there, slaps you, or turns the tables and hands you a questionnaire of her own.
In my generous effort to help my fellow helpless men who inexplicably find themselves in situations where they’re receiving ‘love’ applications and/or resumes for a certain position, I’ve made this excellent questionnaire. Start vetting your ‘love candidates’. You are welcome. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in 
Enhance Your Life By Taking Free Courses
(Our guest writer, Brian Jenkins, writes about a variety of education topics for BrainTrack.com. This includes college level courses in culinary arts, which many bachelors out there could desperately use.)
Do you feel as though you could use some upgrades to your dating, personal finance, and/or cooking skills? Perhaps you’re preparing to take a beautiful woman to a fancy restaurant and you want to learn how to reject wines like an expert? You can learn this skill, and other skills useful for bachelors, for free! Let’s take a look at some free courses and some other interesting resources:
Cooking Classes
After preparing and providing an elaborate home cooked meal, your date says, “That was very good.” However, even your parakeet knows she’s lying. What can you do? Take a cooking class and learn how to cook scrumptious meals. You may even get lucky and meet some women in class.
- Williams & Sonoma, the home furnishing and cookware store, provides free cooking technique classes every month. Find a store store you.
- Find local amateur cooking classes at the Shaw Guides’ Recreational Cooking & Wine Schools web page.
- The gourmet store, Sur la table, offers full participation cooking classes throughout the nation.
- The popular Whole Foods Market has culinary centers in over 30 of its stores across the country.
- Use StarChefs to find a quality cooking school in your area.
European Cooking Vacations
Take a European cooking vacation and add some spice to your life. The International Kitchen offers an array of cooking vacations and one day classes in France, Italy, and Spain. The programs also include sightseeing tours. Cooking Vacations provides hands-on cooking classes and cultural tours in Italy’s 20 regions.
Free Online Wine Courses
How can you class yourself up to impress women? You could always wear a monocle. But perhaps a better choice would be to dazzle women with your wine knowledge. Take these two free online wine courses. The short interactive course will have you tasting wines like an expert, while the advanced course teaches you how to do the following:
- Differentiate and describe wines like an expert
- Talk about and order wine with confidence
- Save money when buying wine
- Reject wines commonly accepted by other people
- Pair wine with food
Personal Finances
You don’t know much about personal finance topics? Is your brain melting due to your substantial credit card debt? What can you do? Enhance your knowledge by taking some free online personal finance courses. Check out Financial Security for All at eXtension, Money 101, and Planning for a Secure Retirement.
Even if you’re an expert on personal finance, consider taking a free undergraduate business course through MIT OpenCourseWare. MIT’s Sloan School of Business Management offers an extensive list of free classes. And yes, you can impress women by casually letting it be known you’re taking classes at MIT!
Speak With Class
How can you woo your date? Sprinkle the conversation with romantic French phrases. Don’t have the time or money to move to Paris? No problem! Take free online french lessons! Obviously, you’ll need to wear a beret to complete the wooing process.
By not paying a dime for these life-enhancing courses, you can buy that 2011 Mercedes-Benz CL-Class automobile (MSRP $110,400) you’ve been thinking about! THAT should impress a few ladies.
(The opinions expressed by this writer don’t necessarily reflect those of The Domesticated Bachelor.)
Related Articles
11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor
Guest Articles
Nice Guys Finish Last: Why Women Are Attracted To Bad Boys
Top 5 Reasons Women Choose To Stay Single
Sign-up for free updates from the Domesticated Bachelor through RSS or link to one of the buttons below! Do it!
Middle Aged? Already?
Meet Our Mascot and Logo, Goatman Gatsby
Bachelor Pads Have 15 Times More Germs!!!
This is not my beautiful house.
by Jonathan Bacteria Perry
Okay, dudes. We need to talk. It seems we have a problem, a perception problem that’s going to take a lot of Lysol & Clorox to wipe clean. Apparently our bachelor pads have gotten pretty funky. I know that’s not terribly surprising, but now there’s this so-called ‘official’ research from the University of Arizona showing how truly foul things are. According to these tests, bachelor pads contain 15 times the amount of bacteria than is in the homes of bachelorettes. 15 TIMES! That’s insane. I didn’t figure the number would be that high. Maybe 3 or 4 times more germs, but not 15. Of course, the study found that bachelorette homes were even cleaner than the average home with 2 or more people, so apparently bachelorettes are freaks, like museum curators or something, whereas bachelor pads were like monkey cages (which would make bachelors the monkeys throwing poop, not the zoo keepers).
Oh, the grossest thing the study found about bachelor pads is that 70% of coffee tables harbored coliform, a type of bacteria common in feces. Feces! You’ve got crap on your coffee table! Apparently shoes pick up feces after a while, so if you put your feet up on the coffee table, there’s a good chance you’re transferring poop. Exciting, huh? These coliforms and other fun microbes, including cold and flu carriers, were also abundant on TV remotes, door knobs, and the bedside stand. It’s true, bachelorette homes weren’t immune to these bugs, but they weren’t nearly as disgustingly infested.
Now guys, you can take some solace in knowing you aren’t spreading the Legionnaires Disease that recently made almost 200 visitors to the Playboy Mansion ill. We all knew there’d be some scary stuff coming from there, but not on that big of a scale. I’m sure you might be interested in seeing some sort of trade off, like the flu for a scantily clad woman or hives for a dominatrix, but things don’t exactly work like that (though bringing a stripper home might provide bonus bacteria). It’s probably more important at this point to take a Sunday afternoon and wipe up your filth, you pig.
And if she ever asks whether you want to go back to her place or to your place, you know, to make jam, definitely go to her place. And remember to take off your shoes.
The secret word is nasty.
Bachelor Pad Links
How NOT to Decorate a Bachelor Pad
Domesticated Bachelor Step #1: The Bachelor Pad!
DB Step #10: Collect the Right Toys
My Bachelor Pad
Get updates from the Domesticated Bachelor for FREE through RSS or link to one of the buttons below! Do it!
Top Bachelor Links of the Week (Feb 6-12)
Phaistos Disk-1700BC. Can you crack the code?
Last week was most notable for the Super Bowl and some heavy changes in Egypt that hopefully don’t make things worse than they were (cross your fingers on that power vacuum). On a somewhat lighter note, I’ve gathered some nifty new weblinks from last week that might be of interest to the bachelor folk.
1. The Best & Worst Cities For Men- Men’s Health graded 100 major cities in the US using several criteria, including health & social factors. I was pretty stoked because my city, Lincoln, Nebraska, came in 6th! (Lincoln’s done fantastically on several comparison lists over the last few years, which gives me some consolation since I don’t live in the Pacific Northwest.) Take a look to see if your city made the list.
2. 10 Man Caves- The real estate site Zillow.com made a list of 10 great man caves, including Larry the Cable Guy’s man cave. Not so much bachelor pads as bachelor islands in the seas of marriage. Or something.
3. Top 10 Uncracked Codes- If you thought women were hard to crack, check out these 10 codes that have stymied cryptologists for years. One was even written by the composer Elgar in 1897. Maybe you can crack them (probably not). My brother sent me this link.
4. $20,000 To Hack Chrome- For all you computer geniuses and/or nerds (like my college roommate Ted) who need legal & financially happy outlets for your hacking skills, check out Google’s offer of $20,000 to anyone who can hack their Chrome browser during an event in Vancouver next month.
5. 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal (The Singularity)
This was a fascinating article from Time about Ray Kurzweil’s belief in ‘The Singularity’, where computers may soon far surpass human intelligence resulting in humans merging with machines in one of a couple ways. A fascinating read, if potentially disconcerting. Cyborg stuff.
6. 6 New Mythbusting Rules for Singles- Match.com surveyed 5,000 single men & women and found some surprising things that defied stereotypes, including that men fall in love more quickly and are more eager to have children. Why must they tell our secrets?
7. Silver Bullion Backwardation Suggests Supply Stress-Running out of silver? Sort of. The demand is greater than the current supply which means prices should continue to run up for some time. The article explains backwardation and what that means for the price of silver. I started watching silver prices last summer when they were at the $17.50 an ounce level. Today silver is just over $30/oz and this particular article expects it to reach as much as $130 in the not too distant future. The instability of our fiat currencies certainly helps silver and gold, but gold is a bit high for the average investor (currently over $1360 an ounce). Silver is outpacing gold with help from it’s many industrial uses, including it’s use as a conductor in solar power cells. The article doesn’t quite suggest you run to your local coin dealer and stock up, hoarding silver in a hole in your backyard for retirement and/or nuclear fallout, but it didn’t really need to. I think there was a link for that.
The secret word is cryptology
Listomania!
My Bucket List: 100 Things To Do Before I Die
11 Steps To Becoming A Domesticated Bachelor
My 11 Favorite Christmas Albums
30 Favorite Songs of 2009 (1-15)
9 Foods I Might as Well Move To the Bomb Shelter
Timely Link
Subscribe to the Domesticated Bachelor through RSS or link to one of the buttons below! Do it!
How I’m Not Really Related To Ben Franklin (But It Turns Out I’m Swiss!)
Jon (Benny Lava) Perry
It’s genealogy time in the bachelor cave. It came up in conversation a month ago with Jeff, one of the main dudes at my office. After a heated discussion on Nietzsche (not really) we somehow got into world travel or genealogy where I learned that, as a result of his genealogical research on Ancestry.com, Jeff would be traveling next year to a small town in the Czech Republic with his dad to see where their ancestors had lived. Awesome! Jeff raved about how easy it was to track family information on the site. I mentioned how much I’ve wanted to do genealogical research to, among other things, discover my alleged family connection to Benjamin Franklin, rock star of the American Revolution and all-around genius-type. My brothers and I grew up with the fairly unverifiable legend that Franklin is a shirttail relative. And nailing my genealogy is on my lengthy bucket list (see the list here). To my surprise, Jeff, wrote down his account name and password and graciously offered to let me use his account for the remaining weeks that were paid up on the site. Going online, I took a crack at my family’s information and was surprised by what I found.
My mom’s genealogy is fairly sorted. We have 2 large red genealogy volumes of the Hinkle side of the family that follow Lutheran missionaries from Germany to America in the 1600s and continue up through the twentieth century. Also, a couple years back I sat down with my grandma and taped an oral history, learning a great deal about the Gottschalls in the process. So, I started researching my dad’s side which is less known to most of the family and from where come stories of a Chippewa (aka Ojibwe/Anishinaabe) Indian chief as well as the aforementioned Ben Franklin. Right away I hit a dead end with my dad’s dad’s branch, the Perrys, the branch with the chief, though I was able to see a 1920 census document from Chicago with names of relatives scrawled out in that old timey handwriting.
James & Amos Van Gundy. No clue who's who. Put online by a relative I don't know.
Instead, I had much better luck tracking through my dad’s mom’s side of the family. The Van Gundys. Amazingly, within a few hours I’d gotten as far back as the 1500s in Switzerland (not actually Van Gundys, but several lines of their ancestors). It was incredible! 500 years! I had no clue we had Swiss blood. From both sides of my family I’d known about a few of our German lines, as well as Chippewa, Cherokee, likely Welsh and Dutch, but not about the Swiss. I feel like slicing up some Swiss cheese with my Swiss Army knife and chomping down some Swiss chocolate while listening to yodeling and alpenhorn music as I ski the alps near those mountain goats and cows with the bells. (Needs more cowbell!) Besides all the Swiss family Robinson (there were no Robinsons), I found a few branches from the Alsace-Lorraine region of Germany. The region has changed hands numerous times between France & Germany over the centuries. So, through all this, we may even have French ancestry. French! Do the French make good Swiss chocolate? Oui.
In the records I saw an alternate spelling for Van Gundy as Von Gundy and Von indicates nobility, but that could just be a misspelling, so I iced my excitement (especially since I’d come to a dead end on that line). I discovered indirect relatives born in China about 200 years ago, but they had Western names and I suspect they might have been family of missionaries or statesmen or merchants or whatever weird job put Europeans in China back then. There was one direct family line with 3 or 4 brothers who fought in the American Revolution after coming over from Switzerland. Pretty cool.
Great-Great Grandpa Winston Van Gundy
After I’d done all this research, I spoke to my dad about what I’d found and was told that he’d learned from great-grandma Van Gundy, shortly before she died, that the Ben Franklin connection was more indirect and roundabout than we’d grown up believing. It turns out that my great-grandma’s sister’s daughter married a Franklin and the connection is through that. Disappointing. I’d hoped there was some genius Franklin gene floating around that was stuck in my head just waiting to pop out and usefully manifest itself in the near future, but no. I also learned from my dad that through marriage we’re related to a wrestler called Wild Red Berry, who wrestled in the 30s, 40s, and 50s. I even found video footage of his wrestling matches on Youtube. That was kind of cool and weird. Weirder still, in the 90s we lived in the same small Kansas town this where this guy had served as mayor and head of the parks department. My brother Chris even played little league baseball in a field named after him. We’d had no idea.
Researching my ancestors made me really feel connected to them (I mean, besides the genetic disorders). I may not learn much about them, but I’ll see names, dates of birth and death, places and even an occasional story or 2. I’d like to go through each name (there are a few hundred so far) and Google to see what stories I can scrounge. I’ve found a few already. I want to discover what they were like. I’ve seen photos of now dead great-great-grandparents I never met put up online by relatives I don’t know. What can I learn about these people who lived scores or hundreds of years ago? They each had their unique characteristics. Their lives had meaning and in a way, when I think about, talk about, or research them, they kind of live again, if only for me.
I may not be directly related to Ben Franklin, but I have many interesting people in my family history, many still living. I’ll have to harass more of them for stories. They may not be famous, but they’re still pretty nifty. I got a few new leads from my dad, so I’ll have to track those down. I still have mom’s side to fully discover and that should be interesting (I need to read those big red Hinkle books). Besides, family legend has it that great-grandpa Seitz left Germany and came to America just before WWI leaving behind a family castle along the Rhine River. Oh, and there are 2 NBA basketball coaches named Van Gundy and maybe we’re cousins. There’s enough to keep me busy for awhile. Perhaps one day I’ll take an exploratory trip to Switzerland and see if I can round up some swell Swiss family tales. Maybe buy an alpenhorn. And lots of Swiss chocolate.
The secret word is alpenhorn
Semi-Related Links:
Children, Braid Your Nosehairs
Family Advice: A Reversal (Sort Of)
Will Your Siblings Use Up The Good Names?
Subscribe to the Domesticated Bachelor through RSS or link to one of the buttons below! Do it!
Related Blogs
30 Million Chinese Bachelors and The Matrix Solution
by Jonathan B Perry
Future Army of Chinese Bachelors (great band name)
I have good news and I have bad news. First, the bad news: Guys of 2020, there will be a surplus of competitive males as there never has been before at any time in history. 30 million extra men to be approximate. In just 10 years there’s going to be such a glut of guys of marriageable age it’ll seem like one endless frat party where there are maybe 2 women in the back. Granted, these extra men are in China where the population is about 1.5 billion (and where 30 million is relatively small, though not really), but still they’re not all going to stay in China and there will likely be some domino effect flopping around the globe, so you’ll need to work extra hard to trick women into hanging out excessively. Drat.
Now the good news: Ladies of 2020, there will be a surplus of competitive males of marriageable age, so the dude options will be greater and more desperate than ever before. The scarcity of women makes each of you even more valuable (think higher pedestals) and you can be choosier and make guys grovel more. Many of you look forward to this. If you hold out just a little longer, say 10 years, some of you current bachelorettes might have better luck snagging younger, awesomer studs.
Of course this imbalance all stems from China’s one child per household policy that often saw families choosing to have boys as their only child and to abort the female fetuses as a practice of population control which retained males who would theoretically provide better for their families. It’s been called gendercide. Now aware of its severe gender imbalance, the Chinese government is making a strong push to the public to look more favorably on girls, hoping to stem the tide of aborted females. So far it’s only been slightly effective (there are banners saying stuff like “Girls are swell”), and it will still take generations for things to even out.
This sort of situation hasn’t really been an issue in previous civilizations. You could draw some similarities with the imbalances after the world wars, when there was a surplus of women when many Johnnys didn’t come marching home again. It’s believed the feminist movement even gained traction from the higher number of single professional women of the 1920s and 1930s. I just thought I’d point that out.
Keanu Reeves waking up in Jello
Concerns have been voiced that this excess of single men, unable to mate, may create many more societal issues in the years to come: wars to cull the surplus males, a rise in crime (particularly rape), an increase in prostitution, a rise in homosexuality, and many more sloppy apartments.
Since it will take many decades to correct the situation in China, what other solutions might there be to help the problem? I’ve come up with a few ideas and only one of them uses bachelors as human batteries a la The Matrix.
Chinese Bachelor Solution #1: Promote religions, like Buddhism or Catholicism, where bachelors become monks or priests. You might have to lure them in with church bingo at first, but do whatever works. This would require a moderate change in the government’s stance toward religion (I’m not pushing either religion. Baptist or Methodist monasteries could be developed, just to mess with things.).
Solution # 2: Chinese mail order grooms- When one thinks of arranging spouses to order, mail order brides from places like Eastern Europe spring to mind. Now with many young Chinese men potentially unable to find mates nearby, they’ll need to cast wider worldwide nets and this may include making themselves available for marriage by mail order. Bigger boxes. More air holes.
Solution # 3: Human batteries a la The Matrix- In the movie The Matrix people lived in watery pods and existed in a dream state, while powering the evil machines. Never mind that you could put caviar on iv and call it a spa weekend. Forget that Beijing and Shanghai could be powered cleanly and cheaply from now until Chinese New Year. No, I suppose it’s not an option (or even a good human rights thing), unless you just do Gilligan-style power-maker with the coconut bicycle making electricity (come to think of it, gyms around the world could do this bit and harness the power to run their tv’s). I’m sure there’d be some way to do it, though it doesn’t really fix the mating thing, does it? Hmm. Forget this one.
Solution # 4: Men dating outside their age groups- I realize guys throughout history have been dating outside their own age group, but it’s usually been scary old rich guys dating younger helpless and/or money-grubbing women (the dudes have more cows for dowries). The Future Army of Chinese Bachelors (cool band name!) may need to consider the limited options and be more open to dating older women, widows and retirees even. And if China can find way to pump out extra females (without aborting males), say through in vitro fertilization or some genetic magic, then the extra dudes could date younger without skewing things too much for the younger guys.
Solution # 5: Cryonics? I’m just putting it out there.
Solution # 6: Find female alien life. I think there have been B-movies about this.
Solution # 7: Import women- Let’s face it, China may do well to find incentives to import women to China. It might be useful to pay women to move to China and marry Chinese men. I can see it now, in 10 years time there will be specials on 20/20 and Oprah about how China has an army of bachelors just waiting for all available women to come for marriage and money. Perhaps special women-only schools could be set up to draw female students from around the world. Maybe it could be something like marketing the acrobat schools to Bollywood dancers (that’s the group I’d aim for).
So, China has a big problem, but there are often viable solutions to difficult problems. Hopefully something can be done to improve the potential for millions of Chinese, while avoiding a catastrophic future involving millions of filthy bachelor pads.
When I re-edit, I’ll find a way to sneak in Bowie’s song “China Doll”.
The secret word is imbalance.
Vaguely Related Reading:
Logan’s Run and Population Control
Not Really Related, but Nifty Reads:
My Bucket List: 100 Things To Do Before I Die
Celebrity Crushes: The Girl Next Door
Celebrity Crushes: Is Elegance Elitist?
Sound Of Music DEATHMATCH!!! Liesl v Maria
Getting Colder:
Which Is Your Type? A Pseudo-Cosmo Quiz
The Prophecy Of The Tornado And the Trailer
How NOT To Decorate The Bachelor Pad
Bachelor Step #1: THE BACHELOR PAD
Subscribe to the Domesticated Bachelor through RSS or link to one of the buttons below! Do it!
Talking To Women Makes Men Dumb
I think we all suspected, but the Dutch have confirmed: men get dumber after talking to women. Especially good-looking women. I’d personally like to take this opportunity to explain, um, you know, my life. Please accept my awkward apologies.
Talking To Women Makes Men Thick
Do you have any good stories of women making men dumb? Please share them, so I’ll feel better about myself. Thanks.
Quasi-Related Reading:
The Jaded Sage & What Women Want
Online Dating: Should You Try It?
Bachelor Secrets 2-Dating Habits
Bachelor Secrets 1- Why Are They Single?
Family Advice: A Reversal (Sort Of)
Changing Your Relationship Status On A Social-Networking Site
Subscribe to the Domesticated Bachelor through RSS or link to one of the buttons below! Do it!
Secrets Of The Modern Bachelor:
Part 2. Dating Habits
by Jonathan Bogart Perry
In my last post, Secrets Of The Modern Bachelor: Part 1. Why Are They Single?, we met the members of our esteemed bachelor panel who told us they’re single for reasons other than that they‘re mutants and lazy. Their answers ranged from being too busy for relationships, to taking time off from them, to fear, to just not being ready to settle down. One bachelor has the fake name Raoul, which I very much like for a fake name (I came up with it, cuz it‘s my study).
In the following paragraphs, we find out about their dating habits, as if they’re rats to be studied. We also tackle the pros and cons of singleness and the bachelors’ interactions with couples.
Types and Frequency of Dating
When asked about dating frequency, our bachelors had a large range. One dated regularly, perhaps once every ten days to two weeks on average. Another dated a few times a year, dating one woman for several months at a time. The last two guys had only been on a few dates ever in their lives. Some of the guys who didn’t really like the stress of dating, only dated when they were seriously interested in a woman. They considered themselves to be super-picky.
One lucky bachelor had actually been set up on a blind date and was about to go on a rare follow-up date, but didn’t really expect much from it because the first date hadn’t gone so hot. I’m not quite sure how they wrangled that second date. The other guys hadn’t been set up on blind dates, with one thinking he wouldn’t take it very seriously, while another had so far refused the set-up date, only allowing for it under the strictest conditions that it’s a well-trusted friend who’s a very good salesperson that arranges this uncomfortable, though well-vetted, set-up.
The questions I was interested in the most were about online dating: had the bachelors dated online and what were their experiences? Online dating is something I’ve considered (Sort of. Not really.), but I definitely wanted some good feedback first from the poor guinea pig saps who‘ve already tried it. James H thought online dating was ok, but preferred personal introductions from friends. He pointed out how easy it is to lie on a profile or use fake or old pictures. Nathan hadn’t tried online dating, but had the same concerns. Josh had tried it, wasn’t impressed by it, and said he’d never do it again. Raoul didn’t think he’d ever use it, citing the differences between online and real life.
James S was more positive. He’d dated online and didn’t think it was bad. He thought it was useful for eliminating people with whom he had nothing in common without blowing 50 bucks on a doomed date. He thinks more people should try it because he’s found good platonic friends that way, but questioned whether one could find a soul mate through online dating.
Advantages and Disadvantages to Singleness
I next asked the dudes about the advantages and disadvantages of being a bachelor, knowing that freedom has a price. The gentlemen agreed. For advantages, they liked not having to edit themselves for someone else and not being concerned about how something they do affects their mate. They cited having more free time and being able to do whatever, whenever, and wherever they pleased. Keeping their own schedule was popular concept. James S noted with particular relish that singleness exempted one from Valentine’s Day purchases and rituals.
Of course, there were some noted minor drawbacks to not being in a relationship. Among the guys, general loneliness and lack of physical contact were big negatives (Sex, smooching, and heavy petting were mentioned. And actually in those words.). The gentlemen missed not being able to tell their problems to a romantic partner, though other platonic friends could fill in as confidants in a pinch. Josh generally liked to be able to talk to a significant other and also wanted to have someone he could admire and be concerned about and who would reciprocate those things. Among the guys, other disadvantages were having to start over with a new relationship, worrying about what other people thought of them and their pathetic states, and not having children. All of the guys hoped to have relationships in the future and had no intention to join holy orders.
Interactions With Couples
As for strange interactions with couples, James H noted how he disliked it when his friends had to check with their spouses or girlfriends before they did anything. He actually felt bad for his coupled friends with the ball-and-chains. One bachelor noted the pity he received from couples and how their efforts to assuage his feelings by saying “Aaawww. It’s ok. You’ll find someone, too.” only made him feel worse.
In Conclusion
So what do these bachelor insights tell us about the single male? First, besides being mutants, they‘re probably shy or super-laid back (read ‘lazy or busy playing World of Warcraft‘). Second, I’m probably not the first person to go to if you want to collect solid scientific or psychological data. Third, I don’t have nearly as many single male friends as I thought I had. And that’s probably ok because that means there’s less competition for the ladies (I really don‘t envy all those extra bachelors in China. Seriously? A woman shortage? That was really bad planning unless it‘s part of a deeper intermarriage plot to take over the world, in which case that was amazing foresight.). It’s possible that more extensive personality testing could tell us whether more bachelors are phlegmatic and less motivated in general, but it is good to see that some of the bachelors are single by choice and still look forward to a future full of lovin‘, if only in a passive sort of way. I’m also thinking that if women want to find guys, they should start playing World of Warcraft.
The secret word is mutants.
Read These:
Bachelor Secrets 1- Why Are They Single?
Couples vs Singles: Socialization
Family Advice: A Reversal (Sort Of)
Changing Your Relationship Status On A Social-Networking Site
Which is Your Type? A Pseudo-Cosmo Quiz
Celebrity Crushes: The Girl Next Door
Celebrity Crushes: Is Elegance Elitist?
Subscribe to the Domesticated Bachelor through RSS or link to one of the buttons below! Do it!
Secrets Of The Modern Bachelor:
Part 1. Why Are They Single?
by Jonathan B. Perry
NOT my panel
Why are bachelors still bachelors? It’s a reasonable question. Aside from the obvious mutational factors common to bachelors, there are other reasons. Being brain diseased myself, I have only the faintest notion of my own condition, so I decided to harass my bachelor comrades to see what they had to say in hopes they’d enlighten me with some bachelor trends I‘d missed. Maybe they’d provide some good answers I could pass off as my own if I’m ever asked about my marital status at gunpoint at an uncomfortable family gathering, like last summer at my 23 year-old cousin Dan‘s wedding (there was probably no gun). I came up with the swell notion of putting together a little questionnaire and emailed it to 12 bachelor friends I know who still talk to me (I don‘t ever actually see any of them, we just have each other‘s email addresses). At least they talked to me before I sent them the emails. I only did get 6 responses. Really 5 ½.
In my great act of nosiness, I posed several personal and potentially embarrassing questions about bachelorhood. The guys I asked ranged in age from early twenties to about 50ish. Most of respondents were in their 20s and 30s. A few are hardcore career guys who are pretty busy getting things done. Some are creative types, and a few are video gamers who do little but gaming.
Besides asking the guys why they thought they were single, I also asked them why their friends and families thought they were single. I asked about the advantages and disadvantages of singleness and what they missed about being in relationships. I tried to find out what their relationship hopes were for the future (clubs, the cloister, or mom‘s basement), whether they’d had interesting experiences with blind dates and, particularly, with online dating. I also wanted to know if the bachelors had had weird interactions with couples. Whether there was abuse or shunning or that sort of thing. One respondent totally got the wrong idea about what I meant by “weird interactions with couples”. Bad bachelor.
Why Are You Single?
The two Jameses were fairly agreed that they were single by choice and were enjoying it. One said he was single because he wasn’t ready to settle down and the other said he was enjoying his downtime from relationships, having been in them most of his life and, apparently in need of rejuvenation. Josh said he was single because he didn’t get out much, being a reclusive gamer. Nathan had self-esteem issues with his weight and lack of professional job, thinking he’d be of little interest to the women in which he was interested. He was also a bit shy. Raoul (totally a fake name) was a goldmine of issues and had several answers to why he thought he was single: low self-esteem, lack of social skills, fear, the good ones are always taken or off-limits, he moves too slowly, and he ends up as “just friends” with the girl. Also, he doesn’t get out much because he’s either at home playing the guitar or off skateboarding by himself. I found I could empathize with Nathan and Raoul, aside from the skateboarding.
When it came to the answers about why the bachelors’ friends and families thought they were single, the bachelors figured their friends and families agreed with their own answers, which removed some of the fun psycho-analytical possibilities. I really wanted more bizarre stuff, like a mother fearing her son was too busy going to drag clubs at night to meet any really nice girls, or friends thinking the guy should bathe more than once a week and do a few sit-ups. But no.
James S’s family thinks he’s single because he hasn’t found the ‘right one’ yet. He says they’re wrong because he loves the ‘wrong ones’. He feels his friends think he’s single because he’s trying to ‘find himself’ for once or that the special someone hasn’t yet succumbed. Nathan figured his family felt he didn’t try to date enough. Raoul (this fake name is swell) says his friends think he’s chicken, and he agrees with this assessment. He thinks his family believes he’s too busy with his studies or has chosen the monastic path of celibacy or they rarely think about his condition (sounds like a disease, huh?) or just don’t care. He’s pretty sure they don’t think he’s gay or visiting drag clubs after classes. I wonder if they’d wonder about drag clubs if we mentioned it. We probably shouldn’t mention it.
Yes, bachelors are a wonder and we’ve only just scratched the surface. Next time we’ll discuss our panel’s dating trends, including blind dating, online dating, and carbondating (ok, maybe not the last one).
The secret word is reclusive.
Read These:
Top 5 Reasons Women Are Single
Family Advice: A Reversal (Sort Of)
Changing Your Relationship Status On A Social-Networking Site
Which is Your Type? A Pseudo-Cosmo Quiz
Celebrity Crushes: The Girl Next Door
Celebrity Crushes: Is Elegance Elitist?
Subscribe to the Domesticated Bachelor through RSS or link to one of the buttons below! Do it!
Related Blogs
A Bachelor Study
Last year I found this interesting report on single men and how they Prefer Being Single Over Marrying the Wrong Person. Besides seeking perfection, the results showed men with low self-esteem issues, and those with little money, felt they had little to offer a spouse. Also, there was a fear of divorce. The report further noted that many bachelors found contentment in their single lives and didn’t constantly stress about coupling. The study facilitator even suggests single women be more patient with the lumbering oafs. It’s an interesting study.
Spring has barely begun, already bringing thunderstorms through my area of Nebraska and taking some tornado action with it. Missed us this time. Happy Spring!
Subscribe to the Domesticated Bachelor through RSS or link to one of the buttons below! Do it!
