After masturbating to an instructional pilates video the other night, it occurred to me that there are degrees of 'single.' There are the men who roll around from date to date, fling to fling, Bacchanalian sexual overlords, conquesting about and flush with vitality. For these men, 'single' is simply the fixed gear at which they pedal, often furiously and drunkenly. These men are champions, they find irony distasteful, and they lurch with obscenely misplaced confidence. They are terrific spectacle.
Alternately, there are single men like myself, naturally melancholy and boastful of being false romantics. Real romantics are Spaniards and/or fictional creations. Everyone else is romantic in a haphazard fashion - we take our cues from our media, and we're unenthused about the whole process. We're enthused about the prospects of, you know, having someone to snuggle with and make out with and love and fuck and bitch to and make us toast - but the chains of romance, those are wrapped tight and cruel.
Romance isn't on my mind, however. It's the Single Life - that's what this blog is for, right? Constant Reader, permit me to paint, in colors lurid and true, a picture of How We Live (prepositional phrase edition): on the floor, without pants, in front of a 2002 model Dell Optiplex, devoid of expectation, playfully hopeful. This beautiful boy is busy microwaving beans, black beans that he will top with sour cream and Tapatio hot sauce, and tortilla chips, and then mix together in a thick mash. He stumbles around a casually uninteresting 3rd floor hovel, making plans to Go Have Coffee Downtown, or Jog, or Be Social, but instead he streams episodes of Breaking Bad and takes a nap.
This isn't the dark tale of an artist spiraling out of control - nor is it the hilarious adventures of a sexually frustrated Sad Clown (it sometimes is). This is simply the snapshot of one year in the life of a man-boy. Or is it...boy-man? Caffeine, early 90's elementary psychology, and pop culture have emotionally retarded and confused my learning curve.
So, Lifestyle and Holding Pattern - those are the two modes of 'Single.' Which are you? Which WERE you? Constant Readers, I await your thoughts, beans in hand.
"After masturbating to an instructional pilates video the other night, it occurred to me that there are degrees of 'single."
ReplyDeleteThis is the opening to your memoir. I could not stop laughing and feeling sad for you all at the same time.
Would it surprise you to find that's not nearly the saddest thing I've masturbated to? I'll say this: Lane Bryant makes catalogs, and they were in my home in 1997.
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