At what age is it appropriate to begin to refer to yourself as a “bachelor”?

Or does this have nothing to do with age? Is it solely mindset? Why do you think this is a good thing to call yourself and how do you say it with a straight face?

I ask because a friend just posted on Facebook:

You may or may not be a bachelor when you get home from a jog, hungry, and after looking in your fridge to make dinner, your best option is a peanut butter sandwich.

And while yes, indeed, this may or may not make you a bachelor (although I’m pretty sure he’s implying that it does, in fact, make you a bachelor), the greater question for me is whether a 26 year-old should be referring to himself as a bachelor.

HEAVENS YOU AREN’T MARRIED YET? DEAR GOD MAN MIGHT AS WELL BUY A CREEPY LEOPARD PRINT LAMP.

Or something like that.

When I was twenty and in college, I was talking to a dear and preposterous friend online (also 20 years of age) who had just been dumped. He oh-so-philosophically said (yes, you guessed it):

Oh, well. I guess it’s back to the bachelor life for me.

And I very kindly refrained from saying, YOU MEAN EATING PIZZA BY YOURSELF AND NOT GETTING ANY? IS THAT WHAT WE’RE CALLING IT NOW?

Whatever happened to using the word “single”? Also, whatever happened to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches being awesome? And how many of you in relationships also sometimes struggle with what to eat for dinner and an empty fridge?

Are we mixing up significant others for magic-fridge-stocking-elves?

(Does that exist and I’ll take two please, in case the one breaks.)

Love,

MM

P.S. What is my “swinging female” phrase? Spinster? Cougar? Puma? (That’s a young cougar, for those of you who don’t know the lingo, but I think I’m even younger than that, so…)

If I call myself a “bachelorette” everyone will just think I’m on that TV show. And I’m not. (NOT YET.)

On Monday night I failed at making dinner. I had a recipe. I followed the recipe. I can’t explain it. I’m pretty good at following instructions– scratch that, it’s one of my secret ninja skills, you should have seen me go in elementary school– and so I just don’t know.

Instead of a nice, golden, toasted top and bubbling chard gratin, I ended up with sawdust and wilty greens. I ate frozen beef tamales from Trader Joe’s instead.

They were good. But it was stupid.

Someone asked me what went wrong, and I couldn’t tell him. Then he asked why I have so much analysis pertaining to my relationships and none at all having to do with why my dinner failed. This is a matter I am now giving serious consideration to.

In the meantime, I hate chard. We’re broken up, and I do not wish him happiness, and I sought solace last night with roasted lemon creme fraiche chicken and it was SO GOOD. YOU HEAR THAT, CHARD? YEAH.

You’re probably feeling super bitter right now. Hell, you’re green with envy. Not my fault you wilt with pressure (cooking).

…You can go boil your stem.

MM

Oh, you mock me! Sitting there in the fridge, embodying my wastefulness, my wanton eating habits, my wayward grocery choices. You, with your congealed fat and grease, your separating ingredients, your frigid flesh, you judge me.

How am I to face you the next day? How am I to soften what has hardened overnight? Such a difference between hot-off-the-stove in a fit of passion the night before, and the cold logic of lunch the next day! I am showered, I have changed, and yet you must confront me with the day before, holding me in a clutch of guilt so strong I cannot move on.

I cannot throw you out, and yet I cannot bring myself to willingly sit down with you again. If I make myself, we eat in silence. Resentful, dried-up or melting mushy silence. Dissatisfied, I judge all others who come after you– passing them along to friends or refusing them on the spot, not allowing any one the chance to prove me wrong.

How am I to commit to you? Five days may as well be for eternity. I would just as soon let you hide and rot until my guilt it assuaged by your green envy of other, fresher food. “Ha! I cannot eat you now!” I think. I throw you out and only feel a pang of remorse for what might have been. But I know it never would have worked.

No, you and I, we were never meant to be. Now if only I could find the perfect sized-for-one recipe.

With a sad, remorseful sigh,

MM

You know that you will always be important to me. How could you not be? Even before I truly knew you, one of the first times I saw you, I felt drawn to you. “Why’s Bill on TV?” I asked my parents when I was eight. They laughed, and corrected me—we don’t call politicians by their first names, they said, you should say Bill Clinton or the President. But it felt right.

I know a sixteen-year-old who shook your hand, went home, and told her mother, I know why Monica did it.

I too know why Monica did it.

You are inexpressibly charming, a southern Democrat for the ages. The way you massaged that interviewer’s wrist last night is such a classic example of the way you make people want to give you what you want. When you talk, the enticing accent of Arkansas washes over me as I remember our times in Brainland and our vacations in Heartland, and I almost cannot go through with what I know I must do.

Bill, it’s over. There’s someone else. I have learned so much during our time together, and will never forget what you have taught me about how a face should look when one is praised publicly (half seduce-you-tonight and half yeah-that’s-right). But I was young when I fell for you, and I know now that it was just a crush. My new relationship has not been easy, but it is real and it is based in an understanding of adult responsibilities. We have common interests and are willing to do whatever it will take to make it work. Bill, I am in love with your wife Hillary.

You are charming, it’s true, but she is a fighter. I cannot resist the determination in her voice, the grit in her teeth, the way she loves me and my stories. Who else could make a comeback after what you did to her, could capture the white middle-class and the Black and the Hispanic vote, who else could morph into a shot-and-a-beer kind of gal while wearing an orange pantsuit and pearls? I think she wears animal print underwear beneath those jacket buttons. It makes her strong, it makes her audacious. It makes her want it all, and so she hungers after health care and money for the soldiers in Iraq, she craves not just relief for student loans, but rights for workers. And yes, things aren’t going her way right now, but she is still my candidate.

I hope you can forgive me. I care about you very much and wish you well. You will always be my first politician.

All my best,

MM