Bachelor Problems
08 Febrero 2014 2330
1. 1.
Carpal
tunnel syndrome. Yes, not ashamed to admit it. Not having a woman to
regularly share my sheets with bugs me. No sexual healing for me at the end of
a working day. I souped up my bedroom too, nice satin sheets (recommended by an ex-fling), queen memory foam, toppers, scented candles, computer loaded with plethora of lovemaking songs, ambient lights...but it's generally useless since there haven't been much action there lately. Like Lamborghini that haven't been driven for many many moons. Consolation: if you have some imagination, some lotion, and internet
access you’d be closing the night with Megan, Monica, Mya…more than you fingers
could count without feeling guilty or dirty.
2.
Too much
time on your hands. Aside from aforementioned activity (pun intended), you
find too much time to burn. Having a girl in your life drains so much of it,
you miss how much time you don’t get to spend on your own. Waiting, and wasting
time seem to be much more interesting as a group activity. Whether it’s waiting
for them shopping, getting ready, picking food at restaurants, picking what
restaurants to go to, listening to them get to the point of the conversation/story,
and many others I won’t mention for sake of brevity, kinda miss missing out on
things. Time is gold, but when you have too
much of it, just like anything, it’s not as valuable. Time and gold are two things readily wasted by a girlfriend if you let 'em.
3. Finding yourself talking to a bitch. By
that I mean my dog. Now my dog is, in a lot of ways, much more interesting,
smarter, and more rational than most people. She tells me when she wants to
poop (to the point and no running around), when she’s hungry (no mind games to
trick me into wanting to go to a restaurant you hate but she likes), and she’s
happy as all hell when you get home. But as much as I love her, the back of my
mind can’t help to think that I’m a little crazier every time I find myself
talking to an animal, as she watch me cook spaghetti in the kitchen. Ranting about
complexities of US Army standards of medical fitness policies and how much of
my fellow veterans use, abuse, and misuse the system to get $$$. As great a
listener Yukiko is, I kinda wish she could tell me to “Shut the fvck up” sometimes.
4.
No
nagging motivation. Sometimes you need someone to put a blowtorch to your
ass. When you have a woman in
your life, whether it passive or active, there’s some form of impetus to do
things. All of them end with exclamation
points. Examples: “Clean your place yuck!” “My God your truck smells like
sweat!” “I thought you were gonna hurry home so we can go together?!” “I
remember when you had abs like that…!” When I have girlfriend I get stuff done.
How? They hold stuff for ransom. If you don’t do a you don’t get b. Or if you
do x you get y.* That puts a lot of things in the right priority. Like a comic
once said “If a man could make love to a woman in cardboard box he wouldn’t buy
a house.”
5. No excuses. The best alibis you could come up with to
get out of things are relationship based. If you ask the commander if you could
take a leave and he asks why, you could BS that your girlfriend’s father’s uncle’s
sister died and there’s a funeral. Or, if you want to ditch the guys you tell them it's because
she promised to give you a nuru massage. Your mom’s phone call, because gf’s
having an anxiety attack and bawling her eyes out. Or that she’s got
appendicitis and needs surgery. If you can’t think of a good one, girls are
amazing fictionists and could help you cook one up. If you’re
single no one seems to think that you have important things to do in
comparison to when you’re married or have a family. I guess you’re just too
selfish when you’re single. The other day, it was a snow day and the office let go all
NCO’s that weren’t single. Guess who get to stay to finish the shift?
6. Brokeback allegations. I never thought
that I would have to prove my sexuality to the opposite sex.
Traditionally when a guy shows masculinity he usually does it to trounce other
dudes’ braggadocio. Like when two bucks fight. You just lift heavier, talk
louder, do something crazier, fight better and guys usually are easily impressed---watch
two men fight and shake hands a day later (they’ll still call you gay and slap
your ass in the locker room though). When you beat another dude he's less likely to think you're gay (you can't admit you got beat up or outdone by a gay man---no offense to gays, but that's just men's egos). But women, even those you don’t want the
attention of, you just can't impress. They seem to think you’re gay when you’re
putting you best foot forward trying to find a good woman/serious relationship.
So what is the orthodox way of finding a serious relationship? Well you do some
of the following. You take a shower more often, check. You buy and wear clothes
that fit you better, check. Clothes that make you look more intelligent, savvy
and interesting, check. You
go to places where you think you’ll find intelligent, savvy and interesting
decent women (like the library, church, spiffy restaurants/coffee houses, gym, music
festivals, art galleries, hiking trails, intramural sports teams---places where
you would serendipitously find Meg Ryan in a movie), check. You watch what you say and try to be polite, check. But all that make
you bat for the other team? Why is that? Sometimes it feels like they’re
traumatized of bad experiences with other men that when someone is genuinely trying, they think it's too good to be true. Disclaimer: even
at my best, it’s probably not all that great.
7. Soft side. When you’re a bachelor you seem to have two groups
of friends: your boys and everybody else (it's hard to have women friends). Guy friends, well, it’s hard to tell them
serious matters. You can’t show them you’re vulnerable, and if you are/do the
solution usually involves “getting some tail this weekend.” If you feel
overwhelmed, that you just “drive through that mothafvcka.” I won’t lie, I’ve
been that friend before. It’s hard to be serious with your homeboys; feel like you
gotta be macho all the time. And everybody else are just too damn professional
or they don’t care about what you have to say on a personal level. Kinda miss
just not having to pretend you’re superman, that you actually have guilt, your
frustrations. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s good to internalize your
frustrations and use it for motivation (at the gym, or doing something
productive). Yet other times, you just need to vent out and be yourself. Pull
out your kryptonite and get a hug (even back hugs are great---boobs touching your back has tons of therapeutic effects) and patronizing attention.
8.
Temptation
to prostitute yourself. Something I would never do is join a dating site.
It’s just not for me. How the hell do you put a picture, say you like walking
on the beach and cuddling Panda bears, and wait for a similarly desperate stranger
living in your city pick you on pity line up search? Another thing I find silly
are set ups and blind dates. You know your friends’ wife who loves setting up
people who’s got a best friend who lives in Nebraska as a pharmacist who’s
looking for a relationship because she’s 35 and her ovaries are wanting a refund
so badly? They’re better than military recruiters, setting you up on bad dates
and awkward situations. But the temptation to exhaust all your available
options are always on the table.
9.
Going
stag. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being single. I think that
all the problems of being by a bachelor are yours and no one else’s business.
But even when you want to enjoy it, people don’t seem to want you to forget
the bad aspects of being a bachelor. It seems they want you to be
lonely and sad, and not forget it, when you aren’t. They make you do things like explain why you’re going stag in military balls, events, or just shopping. As if being alone means being lonely as well. Not going to lie, and you as a reader can probably tell by the voice of this post, that there are times when it's terribly lonesome to be by yourself. But most of the time, it ain't too bad and definitely not the worst thing in the world. Granted half of the women that tag along with your friends and
colleagues are often times embarrassing themselves, there could be far worse things than spending your evenings unattached. Still though, you will
be required inquiries why you’re single, why you’re attending without a partner
or an excuse to validate your lack thereof---like you have to have reason for them to feel sorry for you (the more dramatic the better---you’re
a divorcee, you’re a widower, you’ve lost Mandy Moore to stage 4 cancer and you
can’t seem to find another girl like her).
10. You find yourself writing a blog post on a
Friday night before Valentines’ Day about being single. Nuff said.
Happy Valentines’ Day,
Sleepless in Colorado, out.
*List for categories
a: get your act right, clean up
your mess, hurry up and get me, wait for me
b: get any
x: play your cards right, fix my
car, if you put up with my drama, shut up and take care of business
y: get some, a pat in the back,
moratorium from nagging
Relevant tunes:
Jay-Z- I Got 99 Problems
Sugarcult-Do It Alone
K. West- Runaway
Hey. You're not alone. I talk to my cat in my baby voice and my friends and family seem to be totally okay with it.
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