Good Single vs. Bad Single

Many of my married acquaintances think I'm the luckiest guy on Earth since I'm single. They like to lament how big of a pain their nagging wife is, how fat she got after the wedding, how their sex life sucks, how they never get to have any fun anymore, and so on.

These folks think that just because I'm single, I'm automatically a big swanky love machine. As if I were out there swinging from the chandelier every Friday night with an unlimited selection of nubile young ladies. Or, I'm sitting around Morrill Manor in a purple silk robe like Hugh Freakin' Hefner while a bevy of busty blondes serve me.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. What my married friends don't understand is, there are two kinds of single. There's "good single". And here's "bad single".

You all know the "good single" type. This is the preppy guy or the glamour gal that dates a whole bunch of different people but just can't settle on one. Whether it be excessively high standards, a promiscuous attitude, or perhaps a fear of commitment, they just can't settle down. Think of this person as you would an ice cream junkie at Baskin-Robbins who complains that there's "only" 31 Flavors, or a lush that groans about Schnucks only carrying eleven kinds of tequila. Some folks just can't get enough variety.

I have a female acquaintance like this. We'll call her "The Debutante". The Debutante is an absolutely gorgeous girl, and she was single into her mid-30's. She dated a succession of high rollers; one week it would be an airline pilot,then it would be a golf pro, then it would be a random doctor, or lawyer, or whatever. She was proposed to a number of times and flown to many exotic locales, treated like a queen, and responded to all this attention by blowing the men off and moving on to the next fat cat. This, friends and neighbors, is "good single." She was loving life. Her love life was a smorgasbord, which is kind of pathetic in a commitment-phobic sort of way, but admirable in that she was never in need of company. At least she had a love life, however sordid.

(Oddly, whenever I would hear about what sort of new local luminary she was dating from her mother, all I ever heard was what the guy did for a living. I never heard any other unimportant, piddling details, like whether he was actually nice or anything. God forbid we worry about such silly things.)

She finally settled on one perfect man after dating many supposedly perfect men, and married (so far happily) at age 34. Good for her.

The point is: The Debutante had plenty of opportunities to settle down...never spent a weekend alone...and was basically single because she wanted to be.

I, on the other hand, am single because I can't find any chics willing to put up with me that don't outweigh me by a metric ton or two. Oh, the grief.

See, after "good single", there's "bad single": the kind of single person married folks never seem to acknowledge exist. "Bad single" folks are those who don't really want to be single, but yet always are.

Kind of like me.

I'm single, but I'm not out there dating half a dozen minor local celebrities. I rarely date anyone. Far from having a grocery list of girls waiting eagerly to hook up with me like in "Mambo No. 5", I've got a grocery list with, uh, groceries on it. Far from swinging from the chandelier with a harem of fine, prime SEMO women, I am far more likely to be at the video store by myself at 5:00 PM on a Friday lamenting the fact that I've seen every movie there already. Or, at 9:00 PM on a Saturday, instead of being out sowing my oats, I'm just as likely to be home alone trying to go undefeated on Madden 2004 on the PlayStation 2.

That, friends and neighbors, is the very definition of "bad single".

Being "bad single" has its positives. For example, if I want to eat, I can just go eat. I only have to worry about my own schedule while arranging lunch or dinner. To be honest, I kind of enjoy the dirty looks I get when I go to a restaurant during really busy times and ask for a "table for one". I'm just that kind of guy.

Being "bad single" also saves me money that I could be spending on a date with some gal who really doesn't want to be there. You know, the kind of girl who gets bored with such silly things as my brain, my writing, my house, my car, or lack of any real skeletons in the closet. The kind of ditz who would much rather be on the back of some guy's Harley as he speeds away from robbing a convenience store. That's her idea of romance. For some reason I seem to attract the type of gal that loves criminals (besides the aforementioned bovine babes that usually dig me by default). I don't need either kind. An evening with a six pack of Stag and access to a word processor is much more fun (and cost effective) than dating Mrs. Wrong.

And, in the end, being "bad single" also keeps me from screwing up my life in some monumental fashion, as many of my married-to-a-frigid-witch, divorced-and-paying-alimony, or saddled-with-a-kid-that- they'll-be-paying-for-for- the-next-eighteen-years type friends have done. I guess we'll call that "bad taken". "Taken" meaning, "not available", or "taken" to the cleaners. I report. You decide.

As grueling as it can be sometimes, "bad single" probably beats out "bad taken". It's a photo finish, but some sucker out there probably has it worse than me.

Luckily, I'm too egotistical to care about that poor schmuck.