I suppose that's one of the reasons why I started this blog; to clear up the myriad of falsehoods circulating about bachelors. So, yes, I might be a slob at times. But I'm not broken (although some may argue that), I believe I'm more than capable of being in a stable relationship and I'm certainly not gay (not that there's anything wrong with that...gotta love Seinfeld).
Oh, Zooey, will you be my Mrs. Right? No? Ummmm...okay, then.
Wuv, Oh, Wuv:
But here's the fact. Bachelors DO fall in love. No, it's true. Bachelors are humans, too, it's just that, as bachelors, we make slightly different decisions, have different priorties than those who get married at 21, pop out a copule of babies and move to Arvada. There are a lot of theories as to why bachelors are who they are. Some psychologists will tell you that we bachelors are afraid of committment. Others will say we don't value ourselves enough to believe we deserve to have healthy relationships, so we sabotage them at some point. Even others will say that some bachelors are the way we are because we come from broken homes and therefore don't believe in love.
To all that I say, and pardon my French...bullshit. I've been in love. More than once, even. I've even asked people to marry me. How's THAT for fear of committment? Sure, I may have sabotaged a relationship or two in my time, but, well, that's not the point, and it doesn't support my argument here, so I'm going to just gloss over it if that's okay with you, kind reader.
The point is, all bachelors fall in love. It's just what we do with it that separates of from the rest of the non-bachelor, you-must-get-married-and-have-children world. Some, many bachelors will, eventually do just that. Most do, in fact. And yet there are still those stallwart holdouts that refuse to enter into that end all be all of relationships. In those cases, circumstances may have played a tragic role in their life decisions. Or perhaps they simply haven't found the "right" one yet.
But who is Misses Right? And why is it that she so often loses out to Misses Right Now? There are a number of reasons this happens. So listen up, those of you looking to snag a bachelor and drag him, or her, into blessed matrimony.
Let the Comparisons Begin:
For one thing, there's the pressure. Bachelors simply don't do well with pressure. They may be able to multi-task seven different projects under tight deadlines. They might be able to save a person's life with CPR in an emergency situation. They might be able to run a CEO, be part of a non-profit board of directors and coach a high school baseball team. But get any of these folks together with a woman, at a romantic restaurant, faced with the prospect of talking about marriage and family and children and in-laws, and they start sweating harder than a sumo wrestler in a sauna.
Misses "Right Now" comes with no pressure. No baggage. You don't even have to know her name if you don't want to know. The biggest pressures a bachelor faces with Misses "Right Now" is whether or not to pay for dinner or wait to buy breakfast. There are expectations with Misses Right. Ladies, if you want to beat out Misses Right Now, cool your jets. Be patient, take your time.
The other issue is control. Bachelors are used to their freedom. When a bachelor finds a potential Misses Right, there are sacrifices to be made. Weekend nights aren't their own anymore, they have to lower the lid on the toilet seats, they actually have to regularly clean their homes. Decisions aren't made by the bachelor alone anymore, they have to made as a pair. This can be frustrating to the bachelor who is used to unilaterally deciding things on his own.
By the way, all of these issues also relate to bachelorettes, so don't think I'm forgetting you, I'm not. For those of you who want to be Mrs, or Mr., Right, let bachelors keep their sense of independence, their individuality. Some will resist more than others. Some might jump wholeheartedly into a relationship and explore this new thing called a committed relationship like a child may play with a new toy on Christmas morning. They'll play with it and smother, exploring everything about it and use it up until it runs down or breaks or they simply lose interest.
I've done that, heck we've all done that as bachelors at one point or another.
Now for the bachelors in the crowd:
Be open to relationships, but don't be looking for Misses Right. I know that sounds strange, right? But it makes sense. Looking just adds pressure and expectation. Besides, you'll know when it happens. I've always gauged my level of interest by butterflies.
No, not real butterflies. It's not like they speak to me, although that would be cool, wouldn't it? To be able to have a little butterfly as some kind of romantic adviser? This might prove to be a problem, though, because of their short lifespan. But back to the point. I like women. Some of my best friends are women. Many of them are very, very attractive. But I don't have romantic feelings for many of them. Don't ask me why not, I just don't. But when I do, I know, because, first, I think about them constantly, and second, when I'm around them, I get butterflies in my tummy. Thumper might call it twitterpated. I call it a crush.
I get crushes all the time. Seriously, I do. I'm like a little lovesick schoolchild when it happens, it's disgusting, really, but it happens, more often than I'd like. Now as a bachelor we have to learn the difference between crushes and real love.
First rule bachelors, and listen up. Crushes are fun, love isn't. Crushes are cute and flirty and harmless. Love is painful, gut-wrenching, sick-to-your-stomach gut-wrenching. Suddenly the most innocuous of comments carry massive weight, as if they were boulders dropped from a plane at 30,000 feet. Love is scary and mystifying and, yes, wonderful, all at the same time.
Bachelors, the next time you're trying to decide if the girl sleeping next to you is Mrs. Right Now, or actually could be Mrs. Right, ask yourself these questions.
A Many Splendored Thing:
Do you find yourself doing things to please her? Things like cleaning your bathroom three times a week, or eating healthier or getting up at 5am to go work out with her? Things you normally wouldn't do even if there were a gun to your head.
Do you put down the toilet seat and buy extra toilet paper because you want to, not because you feel you have to? More importantly, when you see her tampons in the medicine cabinet, when her toothbrush is prominently next to your sink, when she buys groceries because you just don't choose healthy foods, does it upset you?
That's the real litmus test. When you feel that you're losing some control in your life, when you have to phone in if you're going to be out late, if you're passing up going out with the guys to watch "Knob Hill" on a Friday night and you don't mind, then it might be love.
Because we just don't do these things for women unless we're really, REALLY smitten. Teetering on the edge of love, kind of smitten. More than that, unless we really think that she could be Mrs. Right, these things would normally upset us. It's when the sacrifices come easy, it's when we not only don't mind making the sacrifices, but actually WANT to make the sacrifices that we know, as bachelors, that we might be in love.
But that's really just the easy part. Falling in love isn't hard. We could walk around the corner of the frozen food section at the grocery store and fall in love...or at least lust. As bachelors, we always see the shiny objects that attract us. They're wearing short skirts, or they flip their hair just the right way or their eyes are mesmerizing. No, the actual falling is easy. It's the work that comes afterwards that is hard.
And maybe, just maybe, that might be the one criticism of bachelors I'm willing to concede. We're not broken, we're not afraid, so to speak, or committment, and we're not saboteurs of our relationships. The fact is that we as bachelors just might be lazy. It's the mining and digging and compromising and hard, hard work that goes into a lasting, committed relationship that might bother us the most.
Because with Mrs. Right Now, there IS no work involved. It's more like a day at the amusement park, all cotton candy and bumper card rides. After a while we just get so used to the amusement park and fun of it all, that we start to cringe at the thought of getting our hands dirty, or the daily grind that can be a real relationship.
But that's the great thing about love, bachelors. When it happens, you won't mind the work. Sure, you'll have to get used to it, but you won't hate it. And yes, more often than not, it will all end in horrible, unbearable pain that will scar you emotionally for the rest of your life. But hey, at least you always have being a bachelor to fall back on. That and all those fun amusement park rides.
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