I don't mean to brag, but I've been single for a long time. I'm still not entirely sure why, but loneliness has followed me my whole life -- in bars and cars, on moving sidewalks, at frogurt outlets -- everywhere.
The most frustrating aspect of single life isn't the lack of female companionship (although it's a very close second) but my inability to pinpoint why I don't interact with women like other guys. Perhaps I was a naive (Latin for stupid) teenager, but as a friendly giant (six-foot-five) I assumed that having two-thirds of the tall, dark, and handsome combination would unlock a lot of bedroom doors. Or at the very least, make it easier to meet women of a similar altitude. Or any women at all.
It turned out I was extremely naive. I repeatedly banged my romantic shins during high school and early college. Finally, in the fall of 1993, I began dating a long-time crush and thought the worst was over.
She dumped me a few months later.
To help deal with the Sturm und Drang, I began publishing Single Guy Zine, a Xeroxed magazine filled with short essays, Cosmo-like quizzes for men, cartoons, bad advice, quotations about love, music reviews, and intentionally terrible poetry. Through the zine I discovered other guys (and even a few women) who identified with my woebegone persona: a motley crew of sensitive males, politically correct university students, angst-ridden teenage boys, weepy twenty-something indie-rock sad sacks, divorcees, and widowers.
What publishing a zine taught me, other than how to rip off Kinkos, was that amidst the fear and self-loathing there are laughs. Short, bitter laughs. But laughs nonetheless. It turned out, I was good at being single. My circulation ballooned to nearly 300, and I received favorable reviews from zine guide FactSheet Five and Broken Pencil. Beyond validating my existence and my wacky theories (read: rationalizations) about the advantages of single life, the zine was cheaper than alcohol and far more effective than therapy.
The fact that it irritated my ex-girlfriend was a nifty bonus.
In the spring of 1997, I published the final issue of Single Guy Zine. I stopped because I felt I had exhausted the topic and because the zine had become more curse than blessing. I admit Single Guy was meant to be self-promotion of the most obvious kind -- unlike this book -- but I discovered that most women who read the zine found it simultaneously charming and concerning. In our society, being single isn't something to proudly advertise, but a shameful condition to keep concealed.
Somehow, in the fall of 1997, I again managed to be unsingle for a few months. I have been unattached since. And so, like any normal person, I asked myself some very difficult questions:
The answers have been slow in coming. Clearly, I'm not unwonderful, so I decided I hadn't explored single life completely. Conveniently, my Eureka! moment occurred a few weeks later. In the summer of 1998, I discovered that the density of a given metal could be determined by the amount of water it displaced. No, wait, that was Archimedes.
I discovered the Very Lonely Planet: a hypothetical mental space that single men occupy. Because of the overpowering emotions this mental state provokes, it can sometimes feel like a real, distinct geographical entity. The Very Lonely Planet was a little like those heliocentric models of the universe -- a bit clumsy, lacking in celestial precision, but a functional guide to how the world worked.
Many single guys see other guys just like themselves having successful relationships and wonder what god they've angered. When everybody but you is dating, kissing, and getting married, it's reasonable (or at the very least convenient) to believe that you're from another planet.
A very unpopular planet.
For those still confused by the Very Lonely Planet, here are a few metaphors, incorporating varying degrees of pop-culture sophistication, to help elucidate:
The best metaphor for the Very Lonely Planet, however, is the fugue state, a rare kind of amnesia caused by severe mental trauma. The affected person usually leaves his hometown, and after relocating, is unable to remember his past. He will then adopt a completely new identity and occupation. This situation can last for years, and when the fugue finally ends, the sufferer often can't remember what happened.
The Very Lonely Planet as fugue state works for two reasons: 1) Severe mental trauma corresponds to the pain of being dumped or having to deal with heaps and heaps of unrequited love. 2) Whenever single men finally find a girlfriend, they quickly deny the existence of the Very Lonely Planet, wanting to distance themselves from this village of the damned. We're all familiar with buddies who disappear inside a relationship and become former buddies. So why can't single men have an alternate universe to call their own? A little planet where nobody knows their name?
After "discovering" the Very Lonely Planet, I decided to explore it and map its terrain. The result is this book: a historical, philosophical, biological, epistemological, ontological, and psychological guide to single guys. I hope this book will spackle a noticeable gap in our understanding of gender issues, because if there is one demographic that continues to be vastly underreported and underdescribed by the mainstream media, it is single, mostly white, middle-class males.
Okay, okay, so perhaps guys have hogged the spotlight for the past million years or so. But it's usually a certain kind of male doing the hogging. Hiding in the shadow of the stereotypical football fanatic or date rapist is a fellow I've dubbed the Astute Brute. We know very little about this curious creature, yet Astute Brutes are the dominant nationality of the Very Lonely Planet.
Most universities feature women's studies; think of this book as single guy studies. We are worthy of closer examination, because reflected in our inability to find a mate are the changes of society at large. There are many valid, external reasons for our lack of companionship. I, for example, blame:
Since 1995, women have been able to purchase The Rules. Single men are still trying to create their own blueprint for success. Either we have failed to learn the rules of communicating with the opposite sex, or we've decided not to follow them (at our peril), or we don't particularly like the rules and want some new ones, or there are no rules and anarchy reigns supreme. This book is an attempt to tease out our inner logic and dissect it. You will notice the book is divided into three sections. Do not be alarmed. The first section, Past, Present and Accounted For describes what a Very Lonely Planet might look like and examines single guys through the ages, so as to better understand our current predicament. This section also puts postmodernism, capitalism, and business culture under the monocle to see how these "isms" have affected dating and mating.
The second section, Mono Sapien, sketches the character of the Astute Brute and postulates a periodic table of testosterone viscosity, showing how varying the amount of brain and brawn generates different types of single guys. I then look at some Astute Brute exemplars and examine his communication abilities, probe his emotional stability and question his spiritual beliefs. Finally, I ransack the Astute Brute's CD rack and examine his interpersonal skills.
The final section, Escape Plans, proposes some role models to learn nonsingleness from, before taking a cynical look at the most popular methods of leaving the Very Lonely Planet once and for all.
Every few years an advice columnist emerges to help people figure out the socio-sexual zeitgeist. The 1990s bequeathed us Anka Radakovich, Josey Vogels, Sue Johansen, Rhona Raskin, and Dr. (ecch!) Laura. Oh, and the incredibly popular Dan Savage, who appeals to middle-America's deep-seated desire to have a flippant gay man tell them how to live their lives.
Now, I'm not advertising myself as the next Dan Savage or Dr. (ecch!) Laura. What distinguishes me from nearly every other advice columnist in history is that I urge you to ignore much of what I have to say. After nearly five consecutive years of singleguydom, you'll probably benefit from doing the exact opposite. My best advice is to mope during your early twenties, publish a zine for a few years, mope some more, write a book, and hope that authors become as popular as rock stars.
What I can promise, however, is to treat readers with the dignity and compassion they deserve. I might be occasionally self-deprecating, but this book is not Sex and Dating For Dummies. Gallows humor is one thing, being callous is quite another.
I also promise sincerity, as evinced by my suggestion to ignore my advice outright. This isn't Disney treacle, nor an airy fairy New Age nightmare like Mars and Venus Meet Abbott and Costello. It's an open and honest look at why some men are single. Let's begin by examining some of the emotional scars I have received in the battle between the sexes.
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