Bachelor, Confirmed

Former SFR dating columnist offers one last piece of advice

Let’s face it, sex is the ickity-stickity goo that cements the universe. Observe the horny horseplay that takes place around the simple atom: you’ve got an electron orbiting around, needing something. Kind of being slutty about it, too.

Not just needing something, but needing anything.

Then you got your proton making the same rounds. Looking to give something. To anything. At least to anything that wants its proton-hood. Like maybe that electron he keeps running into. The one giving him "the vibe."

Well, you don't have to be Einstein to figure out these two are going to hook up. In the meantime, they've created enough sexual tension to hang a physical universe on. An expanding universe. A clenching and releasing one, pulsating with multiple eruptions. Ever since the Big Bang splattered stars across the womb of infinite space, sex has been at the very center of creation.

So, it makes sense when we don't get enough of it in our personal lives. It's busy. "Listen man, I've got my hands full holding together the fabric of reality. I can't just come running every time you feel lonely or horny. Make do. Be a neutron for a while. Work on being more stable."

Below is an excerpt from the Bachelor's column that appeared in SFR's first-ever "Love & Sex" issue:

The Bachelor

In politically correct whiner-speak, I would say that I have “issues” with Valentine’s Day.

Let’s start with St. Valentine himself. He was a priest for the Roman church in the third century whose three miracles consisted of finding keys to an Abbey among tall grass during a moonless night, spontaneously healing an entire wedding party of stomach cramps after eating some tainted grouse pie and levitating while displaying signs of stigmata.

The latter being really no big deal, since back then just about everyone was doing it. It was a craze, like the hula-hoop or the Macarena.

So how did this rather so-so saint become the patron of romantic love? I mean he was a priest, for God’s sake! Anyone who has gone to one for marriage counseling knows those guys ain’t so hip in the sex department. No offense, but you don’t ask an Amish farmer for help with your transmission.

It seems that by coincidence the day of his feast on Feb. 14 landed right next to the ancient roman fertility festival of Lupercalia on the 15th. I’ve no doubt that employers, always looking for ways to cut paid holidays, decided to consolidate the two. This is too bad, since I’d have no problem celebrating some pagan bone-a-thon like, say, Caligula Day.

Instead, we once again have taken something sacred like romantic love and, along with the birth of Christ and secretary appreciation, turned it into a cheap commercialist ploy. How often have I tried to explain to my lover that I can’t bring myself to debase the sanctity of my love for her by participating in mammon-oriented ritual of giving gifts and flowers? I cannot count the times, and always to no avail.

“Look, don’t you think that by withholding sex just because I didn’t get you anything for Valentine’s kind of makes you like a prostitute?”

I remember when I was a young proton living in Santa Fe back in the '90s. There were lots of eligible electrons back then. Even for an ion with scaled-back ambitions.

But for a motivated one, a really unstable one, one that wasn't too picky about what kind of molecule he wound up in, well…it was a killing ground. But it took a little hustle, a little savvy. It wasn't just banging away like Whac-A-Mole, que no?

That fact that I could get laid at all was amazing, seeing as I was always drunk and broke, and had no career plans beyond digging ditches for a plumbing company or working as a bouncer. That I could ever score with that kind of handicap, qualified me as a master in the art of seduction. Or said something really sad about Santa Fe women. I'll let the reader decide.

Anyway, I wound up getting a weekly column in this fish-wrap you're reading now. It was called, "The Bachelor," and it featured "advice and more for the single man." Already funny, right? As in, What did I know?

Maybe a little. I had a three-point system for confusing women out of their better judgment (and outerwear). It was based on knowing what to cop to, what to get rid of, and what to cover up. I tried to show how to harpoon with this trident using emotional economy and minimal ethical anguish. I just laid it all out there, as amoral as the directions for assembling a barbecue grill. Machiavellian as fuck, bro.

Some readers were pissed. Mostly men. The more advanced players felt as if I was publishing trade secrets. Other guys told me they were having to field uncomfortable questions from their women like, "Have you ever done anything like this?" Then there were the guys that feigned outrage. They'd write letters to the editor denouncing me, and then to explain how different they were. Ladies, take note.

I'd cringe. It was so clumsily obvious.

Women see through that shit. They're not stupid, dude. Hell, that was the first bullet in my PowerPoint preso. Pay attention, man.

Paradoxically, most female readers were grateful. They'd come up and tell me, "I thought you guys did stuff like that, but I could never prove it." I'd shrug. "It comes with the chromosomes" or "Good to know!" Indeed. Knowledge is power, sister. Wield it wisely. I never did. That's the best way to learn.

I don't know what the single's scene is like these days in Santa Fe, but I hear it's dismal. Too many of the same old familiar faces, I'm told. That's too bad. If you want some advice from the Bachelor, I'll tell you how to fix that, and it's not a rocket science move.

There's a big sexy universe out there. And I think it wants you.


Marius Gustaitis was an SFR dating columnist during the '90s. You can read more of his exploits here. He currently lives a sober life in Camarillo, Calif., alongside his  girlfriend. Asked if his current car has good brakes he responds, "Yes it does!" Read his musings on mariusgustaitis.com


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