Bachelor V. Loner

A Quest for Self Actualization

So I’m getting around to just about 30. I’m not married, and I have no prospects of doing so. I’m a bachelor, right? Not a confirmed bachelor like Harvey Fierstein, but more like the Sam Spade brand of bachelor. Maybe I’m kidding myself with the Sam Spade comparison. The only things we really have in common are trench coats, stubble, and calling broads dames.
So maybe I’m actually a loner. I have friends, but they are select, and they are somewhat like me. What would my neighbours tell the police about me? "He was a quiet man. Kept to himself. Always was digging in the garden..."
There have been many famous bachelors throughout history; Voltaire, J. Edgar Hoover, Beethoven, Andre The Giant, Newton, Plato, James Buchanan and Jesus. All great men in their own right. Were they all afraid of commitment, or did they just have better things to do?
All the famous likeable loners are fictional characters like The Lone Ranger, or Renegade. My uncle is no Renegade, he’s a loner, just like his uncle. While the better known loners spent a great deal of their formative years reading Catcher in the Rye, making exploding mail, poisoning dogs to stop the voices, and invading Poland in violation of the Munich Agreement.
Does Thoreau’s quiet desperation apply to me? Would there be a character liken to myself on a show called Desperate Bachelors? I’m not desperate. At least I don’t think I am. A desperate bachelor would be a pick-up artist who wears a lot of rayon (not the Hawaiian type) and prefers casual sex to a meaningful relationship. So I’m not a desperate bachelor, because, well let’s face it, I don’t even try anymore. Has this attitude relegated me to the loner sort?
Loner. Lone. Alone. Lonely? Am I a lonely guy? Steve Martin made a movie called The Lonely Guy. Could that be me? I was raised in the Mid-west by WASP parents, so I’m a prime candidate for lonely guydom. I need only look at my married friends. Let’s see, married friends, well there are some of my college friends who are married, but I don’t think they count. And then there’s Marty, who just got married. But she just married him to get a green card, or whatever colour it is over there in England. And he was really only a high school chum at best. So all my friends are bachelors and lonely guys. Except for Hayward, who is definitely a loner.
Why am I in this predicament? Is it because I am not seeking companionship? Am I too selfish to share my time with someone else? Have I lost the want or capacity for love? Maybe it’s my contempt for women. Hell, it seems every time I turn on my computer, some advertisement pops up offering me a chance to meet single women in my area. That’s pretty convenient when you think about it. But I guess I would just rather be alone.
Let’s examine my surroundings. I’m a bachelor, just look at my bachelor pad. It’s house of three bachelors. Well, I don’t know if my roommates really qualify as bachelors. Isaac has a girlfriend, and Jason is about to become a daddy. And the bachelor pad is more like a well kept frat house. I’m a loner because I spend a great deal of my spare time riding my motorcycles (Renegade). I also stay up late at night listening to Tom Waits and Syd Barrett.
So what do I have to do to shake this loner persona? Do I need to become an eligible bachelor? And what is that? A guy who women are scrambling over each other to get their hooks in him? So I should get down to dating weight, get a fancy car (or at least one from this current Millennium), start wearing clothes that aren’t purchased for work or at the grocery store, and get a job where I get paid a lot for doing little. Fuck that. I’d rather move back into my mother’s basement.
So you can call me a loner. You might see me at the lonely guy support meetings. But I consider myself a bachelor through and through. And I’ll continue to be a bachelor until the day I’m not.