Posts tagged with "bachelor life"

Finding Love For Two Bachelors

The fact that my dad and I are the eli­gi­ble bach­e­lors in the fam­i­ly means we get a lot of advice around the din­ner table. They bring up avail­able women. Friends of friends, daugh­ters of dance part­ners, or this-per­son-I-know.

It’s strange to come upon the sud­den real­iza­tion that my dad and I are at the same point in life. Does that make me old, or him young?

They ask us our tastes: Looks? Personality? Older or younger? I say, “Money”, but they know me well enough to know I’m jok­ing. A joke to hide my answer, for to reveal myself in this way is to expose a cer­tain vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. So they side­step the ques­tion and ask me if I’m after any­one, think­ing that if I describe a per­son I’m inter­est­ed in, they’ll be able to fig­ure out what I’m look­ing for. It’s com­pli­cat­ed, I think to myself, so only reply with a “No”. They ask me if there’s any­one after me. “No”. That’s even more com­pli­cat­ed.

Last week, my grand­moth­er asked me how old I was. “28”, I told her. “Already! You’re almost 30. It’s time for you to get mar­ried.” She says if I stay in Hong Kong all the girls will be after me because I have some kind of gen­tle­man schol­ar look. My dad too; he’s the man’s man, who’s always been fun and pop­u­lar. And we have Canadian pass­ports. Apparently, we’re in demand.

But they also want to make sure we’re not get­ting involved with the wrong type of women. Someone who will take our mon­ey once we’re mar­ried, or force alimo­ny once they trap us with chil­dren. They tell us to keep an eye on each oth­er. I say that my dad does­n’t need my approval if he wants to get mar­ried, but I don’t need his approval either. So they tell us to bring our girls to meet them, to be sure they’re okay.

I won­der; is love this easy for oth­er peo­ple? Something oth­ers can con­trol, when I can’t con­trol it myself?

Missing Kissing

I’m fac­ing the very tan­gi­ble pos­si­bil­i­ty that I’ll be sin­gle for the rest of my life. Sometimes I won­der how I’ll sur­vive. The strange part is that I feel like I was meant to be in a rela­tion­ship. Quixotic ideas and roman­tic ideals have always point­ed me in that direc­tion, but either the right per­son has­n’t come along, or they’re tak­en.

At the same time, I won­der if I can be in anoth­er rela­tion­ship. I’ve grown so accus­tomed to liv­ing alone, hav­ing things exact­ly my way, with time to work on my projects. No main­te­nance, as it were. How I do enjoy the free­dom.

One sit­u­a­tion isn’t bet­ter than the oth­er, of course. Both have their pros and cons.

Still.

I miss kiss­ing. More than the sex.

The quick acknowl­edg­ment of love in the form of a peck, or the inti­ma­cy of a make-out ses­sion.

Has the win­ter brought this feel­ing? Has the sight of snow and snow­fall remind­ed me of how frigid the nights can be when you’re by your­self?

Or maybe it’s from being sin­gle for this long.

Feeling Particularly Single

Not nec­es­sar­i­ly lone­ly, but sin­gle.

Maybe it’s because I got accus­tomed to liv­ing with some­one. Coming home to anoth­er per­son in the house. Going to bed with a warm body next to me.

My cud­dle bud­dy has decid­ed that she’s off-lim­its1. I haven’t made out with any­one, let alone had sex, in months.

Dry spells are fun­ny things.

During my last one, I was too stoned to even think about dat­ing. The one before that was more of a chal­lenge.

Being sober and sin­gle isn’t quite the way I remem­ber it.

Sometimes peo­ple tell me they want to “intro­duce” me to some­one, but I’m always antsy about hurt­ing mutu­al friends or acquain­tances.

One per­son even gave me the card of a girl they thought was “per­fect” for me, whom she met while get­ting a mort­gage approved at the bank. “Perfect in what way?”, I asked. “Every way”, she said, “Gentle, polite, petite”. For months after­ward, she would ask if I called this per­son, and give me a dis­ap­point­ed look every time I said no, like a moth­er find­ing out that her son has­n’t borne her any grand­chil­dren. I wish I could meet this girl, just to see what some­one else believes I’m look­ing for.

My friends, who are in seri­ous rela­tion­ships or mar­ried now, talk about being sin­gle as if it was akin to their hous­es burn­ing down. They’ve been in their rela­tion­ships for so long that the idea has become for­eign to them. “I’m too old to date”, they say, “Trying to find some­one new, won­der­ing if they like you, fig­ur­ing out if you’re compatible..I could­n’t start over again”.

I always laugh, and think, “Then where does that leave me?”.

  1. I hope it was­n’t because she thought I was lead­ing her on [↩]