The Golden Age of Bachelors was somewhere in the mid-to-late-`50s.
In those days, bachelors lived in bachelor pads. Furnished in Danish Modern. They dated swingin` chicks and took them to smokey little nightclubs where they listened to hot jazz. They wore Ivy League suits. They read Playboy.
Ring-a-ding-ding.
Those days are over.
Today, bachelors are no longer the objects of envy and admiration they once were. Sexy, untameable creatures with no more responsibilities than where to make dinner reservations. Now, they`re often looked at as over-grown Peter Pans, afraid to grow up, unable to commit.
”Bachelor as jerk” the New York Times dubbed them in a recent lifestyle article. And the jerks are on the rise. In 1985, 13.8 percent of men between the ages of 30 and 44 had never married, up from 9 percent a decade earlier.
(Under-30 men aren`t bachelors, they`re just ”premarried.”)
Here, then, is a look at bachelorhood today.
BACHELOR NO. 1
Conversation with a 54-year-old CPA from Highland Park:
Q-What do you eat for dinner?
A-A broiled chicken sandwich.
Q-Where do you get it?
A-I eat it out or bring it in. On rare occasions I cook it myself on an outdoor grill.
Q-What do you buy at the grocery store?
A-I have a very short shopping list: fresh fruits and vegetables, milk, soda, ice cream, and a lot of paper towels.
Q-You don`t have to save for college tuition, you don`t have to buy your wife a fur coat. What do you spend your money on?
A-Cars. Currently I have four: a 1984 dark grey Corvette, my 1982 black Porsche, a 1988 white Chevrolet Blazer, and a 1988 silver Pontiac Grand Prix. Q-Do you travel a lot?
A-I take about five vacations a year. I gravitate to California. Carmel is one of my favorite places, also San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego.
Q-How do people react when they find out you`re a bachelor?
A-They don`t say anything, but their faces says it all: ”What`s wrong with him?” I have an advantage because I know what`s wrong with me.
Q-What?
A-Nothing.
Q-How close have you come to marriage?
A-I`ve never been formally engaged, but about six years ago, I had an understanding with a woman.
Q-How come you`ve never gotten married?
A-It`s just a matter of meeting the right person at the right time. In the course of my life, there were 7 or 8 women I would have happily married, but they just didn`t accept me. There were probably two or three who would have married me, but I wasn`t interested in them.
”Bachelors should be heavily taxed. It is not fair that some men should be happier than others.” -Oscar Wilde
BACHELORS NEED NOT APPLY
– In the arctic town of Pajala, Sweden, men outnumber women 2 to 1.
– In Alaska, women are at such a premium that some of the more attractive males went on ”The Oprah Winfrey Show” looking for mates.
– For reasons no one seems to understand, in the tribes that inhabit the Upper Tor River basin of western New Guinea, there are 25 men for every 15 women. The best chance a man has of marrying is inheriting a widow.
– Between 1980 and 1988, while the number of single men-divorced, widowed or never married-increased 20 percent nationally, in Palm Beach, Fla., it jumped 47 percent.
– In America`s Farm Belt there are 134 males for every 100 women.
– In Japan, in 1985, the number of single men between 25 and 34 was 3.6 million, more than double the number of single women in the same age group.
Food for thought: celibataire is the French word for bachelor.
IN A CLASS BY THEMSELVES
There is a school in Osaka, Japan, called Marriage Man Academy that teaches men how to become more ”marriageable.” On the wall of a classroom is a poster with five rules for potential bridegrooms:
”Do not cringe in front of a woman;
Do not underestimate a woman;
Try to understand a woman;
Be open to a woman; and
Have confidence in yourself.”
The six-month course also teaches men how to comb their hair and tell a joke.
”Give women the vote and in five years there will be a crushing tax on bachelors.” -George Bernard Shaw
BACHELOR NO. 2
Conversation with a 42-year-old TV producer:
Q-What`s a typical dinner?
A-Soup and a salad.
Q-Campbell`s soup?
A-No, a step up from Campbell`s, Progresso.
Q-And you make the salad? You cut up the lettuce?
A-I even make my own dressing. If you want some pathetic scene of heating Spam over Sterno, forget it.
Q-Do you have real furniture? Pictures on the wall?
A-Yes.
Q-What do you spend your money on?
A-It`s expensive to live alone. There`s no one to split expenses with.
Q-What`s the most extravagent thing you`ve ever bought yourself?
A-An $800 leather coat.
Q-How do people respond when they find out you`re single?
A-It depends. Married women think of who they can introduce me to, married men look at me with envy and curiosity, single women with a combination of intrigue, interest and mistrust, and single men with a combination of competitiveness and commiseration.
Q-How come you`ve never gotten married?
A-I haven`t been ready.
Q-When will you be ready?
A-Soon.
”When a bachelor reaches 20 and is still unmarried, the Holy One says,
`Let him rot!` ” -The Talmud
WORLD`S OLDEST BACHELOR
When asked why he dates young women, George Burns-who`s ninetysomething-replied: ”Their stories are shorter.”
I DON`T KNOW, MARTY, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?
In his book, ”Naked Nomads: Unmarried Men in America,” George Gilder reports that single men commit 90 percent of the violent crimes in America and are 21 times more likely to be in a prison or a mental hospital than married men. In addition, among divorced men age 25 to 85, the risk of dying is three times what it is for married men in the same age bracket.
Writes Gilder: ”The single man is poor and neurotic. He is disposd to criminality, drugs, and violence. . . . Of course there are many exceptions.” ”Bachelors are always strange and that`s why women like them.” -James Stephens
RICH MAN, POOR MAN
Married men in America earn an average of 30.6 percent more than unmarried men. While the percentages vary from country to country, this seems true in most of the world. Possible reasons: Most employers are married and they like their married employees more than their singles ones, so they pay them more.
Married men are better employees-more stable, more reliable-so they make more money. Women marry men who make more money. Married men have to earn more money because they have bigger bills.
”The best works, and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men.” -Francis Bacon
MARRIED MEN WHO THINK THEY`RE BACHELORS
– Gary Hart
– Marion Barry
– Jim Bakker
– Jimmy Swaggart
”A bachelor is a man who comes to work each morning from a different direction.” -Leo Rosten
MARRIAGE AND THE ALTER EGO
For seven books, Raymond Chandler kept his hero, Philip Marlowe, joyfully single. But the book he never completed, ”Poodle Springs,” opens with Marlowe married. What happened? Robert B. Parker, who finished Chandler`s novel, speculates that Chandler married off his alter ego because his own wife had died. ”He had some imaginative impulse to have him married if he could not be married.” However, the marriage didn`t seem to change him much. ”He remained fiercely independent,” says Parker. ”That`s part of his problem.” ”Call no man unhappy until he is married.” -Socrates
BACHELOR HALL OF FAME: A QUIZ
1. Best-looking, best-connected bachelor with the brightest future.
(Hint: He finally passed the bar exam.)
2. Literary bachelor operating with a serious handicap.
3. Ultimate bachelor (just ask Joan Collins, Diane Keaton and Madonna).
4. Bachelor with best tan.
5. Washington`s cutest bachelor.
6. Washington`s newest bachelor.
7. Washington`s most retro bachelor.
8. Working on a book titled ”The Art of the Shlemiel.”
9. No lady was fair enough for him.
10. Secret-agent bachelor.
11. Dancing bachelor with an accent.
12. New York`s shortest, loudest bachelor.
13. Biggest bachelor in the South Pacific.
14. Funny bachelor who wears leather pants.
15. Funny bachelor who wears leather gloves.
Answers: 1. John F. Kennedy Jr.; 2. Jake Barnes; 3. Warren Beatty; 4. George Hamilton; 5. U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey of Nebraska; 6. U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter; 7. U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts; 8. Donald Trump; 9. Professor Henry Higgins; 10. James Bond; 11. Mikhail Baryshnikov;
12. Ed Koch; 13. Marlon Brando; 14. Eddie Murphy; 15. Mike Tyson.
”Bachelors know more about women than married men. If they didn`t, they`d be married too.” -H.L. Mencken
NATIONAL OFFICERS, BACHELORS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION
President: Joe Namath
Vice president.: Steve Garvey
Secretary: Henry Kissinger
Treasurer: Don Johnson
Sgt. at arms: John Travolta
”A single man. . .resembles the odd half of a pair of scissors.”
-Benjamin Franklin
WOMEN WHO WOULD MAKE GREAT BACHELORS
Cher
Madonna
Elizabeth Taylor
”A lewd bachelor makes a jealous husband.” -H.G. Bohn
SWINGING BACHELOR
Tarzan
IS IT SOUP YET?
A bachelor can`t live on champagne and Twinkies. Here`s a short kitchen guide:
”All real bachelor food is fried. If you roll the food around in flour before you fry it, you`ve got three of the four Unmarried Male Food Groups:
fat, grease, starch and sugar. You can get the sugar, too, if you have a Mai Tai with dinner.
”Don`t cook steaks in the toaster, even little ones. Never serve oysters during a month that has no paycheck in it. Oregano makes everything taste like pizza.
”Milk is spoiled when it starts to look like yogurt. Yogurt is spoiled when it starts to look like cottage cheese. Cottage cheese is spoiled when it starts to look like regular cheese. Regular cheese is nothing but spoiled milk.
”You can cook a toasted cheese sandwich by wrapping it in aluminum foil and ironing it with as steam iron. Flambeing generally happens by accident. If you call it `Italian cheese toast,` it`s not disgusting to have warmed-over pizza for breakfast.”
(From ”The Bachelor Home Companion: A Practical Guide to Keeping House Like a Pig” by P.J. O`Rourke.)
”Bachelor`s fare: bread and cheese and kisses.” -Jonathan Swift
BEST COLLECTION OF SHIRTS
Jay Gatsby
BACHELOR NO. 3
Conversation with a 41-year-old journalist:
Q-What do you eat for dinner?
A-When I`m being good, I eat those gourmet dinners that Tyson puts out. They`re microwaveable. When I`m not being good, I go out and get a hamburger. I probably eat out 60 percent of the time.
Q-Do you have any strange habits?
A-I`m a movie fanatic. I see two or three movies a week in theatres and another four or five at home.
Q-How close have you come to marriage?
A-In 25 years of dating, there were probably three women that I got to the stage of serious discussions/screaming fights/”You don`t want me even though I want you” or ”You want me but I`m not in love with you.” Two of these have been within the past four or five years.
Q-How come you`ve never married?
A-I`m not really sure I`ve ever been in love.
Q-Do you date a lot?
A-There are four or five women that I see periodically. But they`re not really romantic relationships. I advise them on how to get and keep other men. I`m very good at that.
Q-Do you hope to get married?
A-Uhhh . . . I started to say yes. I think so. Well, for some reason, that`s a difficult question. I have a lot of trouble imagining myself married.
”Happy am I who have no wife.” -Menander
WILL THE LAST BACHELOR OUT OFTHE JACUZZI PLEASE TURN OFF THE LIGHTS?
On July 1, 1989, Hugh Hefner married Kimberley Conrad. On April 9, 1990, he became a daddy.
Swingin` bachelors, R.I.P.
