The Celibate Life

benedick.jpgThat a woman con­ceived me, I thank her; that she
brought me up, I like­wise give her most hum­ble
thanks: but that I will have a recheat wind­ed in my
fore­head, or hang my bugle in an invis­i­ble baldrick,
all women shall par­don me. Because I will not do
them the wrong to mis­trust any, I will do myself the
right to trust none; and the fine is, for the which
I may go the fin­er, I will live a bach­e­lor.

-Much Ado About Noth­ing: Act I, Scene I

I fig­ure since I’m not con­fi­dent enough to actu­al­ly ask a woman on a date and since I’m tired of hav­ing this uncon­fi­dence bug me I can kill two birds with one stone by adopt­ing the celi­bate life. So, no grand­chil­dren for you moth­er; sor­ry. I’m also a tight­wad, dat­ing is expen­sive and poor eco­nom­ics to boot. I’ll take as my role mod­el Sir Benedick of Pad­ua from Much Ado About Noth­ing. A man of sharp wit, prag­mat­ic in action and noble of soul, Sir Benedick is the con­sum­mate bach­e­lor.

I also have an ulte­ri­or motive for my sup­posed celiba­cy.

Is’t come to this? In faith, hath not the world
one man but he will wear his cap with sus­pi­cion?
Shall I nev­er see a bach­e­lor of three-score again?
Go to, i’ faith; an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck
into a yoke, wear the print of it and sigh away
Sun­days.

23 thoughts on “The Celibate Life”

  1. Are you liv­ing back in the ’50’s or some­thing?? Dat­ing? Expen­sive? You know, there are PLENTY of chicks out there who will hap­pi­ly pay for them­selves and in fact INSIST on doing so. So dat­ing should­n’t be real­ly any more expen­sive than hav­ing friends.

  2. What you say is true, I do live in the ’50s in some ways. I feel like a suck­er if I don’t pay, at least the first time ’round.

  3. 1 — I sec­ond Lau­ren. not only for myself, but *every* girl/woman I have ever been friends with is actu­al­ly mod­er­ate­ly offend­ed and thinks they’re on a date with an old-fash­ioneed chau­vanist if a guy they are on a casu­al first or sec­ond date with insists on pay­ing for them. It goes along with the impli­ca­tions that either you think she should be at mar­ried, at home, and preg­nant soon or you expect some­thing in exchange for pay­ing. Split­ting the bill is def­i­nite­ly the norm.

  6. OKay, I have an idea.
    It’s crazy, but it just-might-work!

    *Ask a woman (or a guy, if you are of that per­sua­sion) to:
    — Cof­fee
    — Lunch
    — make up your own!
    * They will either say yes or no
    * If they say yes, you have a DATE!

    And, seri­ous­ly, women nowa­days do not expect to be paid for all the time, at least not the types you’d prob­a­bly want to date. But, even if so, I think your cheap ass can afford 1.50 for a cup of cof­fee for ’em.

  7. thinks they’re on a date with an old-fash­ioneed chau­vanist if a guy they are on a casu­al first or sec­ond date with insists on pay­ing for them. It goes along with the impli­ca­tions that either you think she should be at mar­ried, at home, and preg­nant soon or you expect some­thing in exchange for pay­ing.

    Just because some­one is old-fash­ioned does­n’t mean they are a chau­vin­ist. I can see how those things could be and prob­a­bly are eas­i­ly assumed but that does not mit­i­gate the unfair­ness of the assump­tion.

  8. Patrick, part of the point of decid­ing to live the celi­bate life is that I don’t have to deal with the agony of ask­ing a girl out.

  9. Agony? Shit, you’re ask­ing some­one out on a date. Come on.
    I mean, I am the worst..ungodly..horrible and shy about things like this. Ask Genevieve. But, if you’re going to be a Con­firmed Bach­e­lor, be it ’cause you *want* to be sin­gle, not ’cause you’re wuss­ing out on ask­ing some­one out. You don’t have a large defor­mi­ty, you’re an attrat­ice and semi-charm­ing fel­low and you’re not sleazy. No girl would be offend­ed or weird­ed out by being asked out by you.

  12. You know,I am going to have to agree with my broth­er on this one. Com­ing from a sin­gle girl’s point of view,the cof­fee idea is a good one. I tend to have the rule that whomev­er does the ask­ing for the date,should pay. I have paid for dates before,and I have found that the guy is gen­uine­ly sur­prised. But I don’t mind,because I’ll pay if I asked HIM out.
    Now,I do not think that just because some­one is old fashioned,they are a chau­vanist. I think the old fash­ioned thing is kind of nice. Door opening,pulling out chairs,offering to pay the bill…that is what I call a gen­tle­man. And just because they offer,doesn’t mean I will let them pay the bill. It’s just nice to have the offer.
    And as for you decid­ing to be a bach­e­lor because you are “a wuss”,then I sigh and say get over it. Being alone is not fun and it will get old real quick. You’re going to want some­one to share your life with,to take to the movies,to make din­ner for,to cud­dle with at night. The whole ask­ing girls out can be a tricky thing. But in the end it’s worth it. Because you will gain that con­fi­d­ance and maybe even find that per­son who makes you hap­py.

  13. dont give up adam! im a pan­sy too, but im not giv­ing up. but my prob­lem is.…how do i go up to the girl that plays flute in the band at church??

  14. well hell, you play good gui­tar, join the band. church songs are easy to learn.

    or bet­ter yet, ask her if there is room in the band for anoth­er per­son.

  15. Because you want to take “ask­ing out” advice from a guy whose decid­ing on a life of celiba­cy to avoid it 😉

  16. My per­son­al rule has always been: nev­er date a man that thinks chival­ry is dead.

    Unfor­tu­nate­ly, one per­sons kind­ness might be anoth­ers form of sex­ism. I don’t think it implies any­thing for a man to hold the door for me, or pay for my meal.
    I think it does many a good dis­ser­vice to equate such actions as being old fash­ioned, or even worse “chau­vanis­tic” or “sex­ist”.

    I believe though that if I ask (for a date), I pay, and if he asks, he pays.

    I have nev­er been offend­ed, or con­sid­ered some­one a chau­vanist, for offer­ing to pay for my meal. I think it is kind, and would actu­al­ly wor­ry if after every date I was tossed the bill.

  17. i don’t think you’ve picked the best role mod­el for this sit­u­a­tion, is not sign­or benedick a con­firmed bachlor until he declares love for beat­rice and pro­claims by the end of the play he won­ders why one would not mar­ry? don’t be so hard on your­self, we all go through it. yes the idea of rejec­tion is ter­ri­fy­ing but if you nev­er ask then you will be alone.
    does being alone make you hap­py?

  19. My $0.02:
    I think the under­ly­ing point/theme is that you have to be com­fort­able with who your­self and your sit­u­a­tion before things hap­pen. In oth­er­words tak­ing on the whole com­mit­ted to bacher­lor­hood, if tak­en seri­ous­ly, might lead to you best shot. Sort of like how women seem to be attract­ed to gay/engaged/married men. If you seem to be off the books that some­how makes you more desire­able. So either you need to go gay, get engaged/married, or just pro­claim your­self a life­long bach­e­lor. I think you did the last thing just now…so hang around women, pro­claim your bacelor­hood proud­ly and they will flock to you…(I mean why not, I don’t see how it could be that bad of an idea)

  22. “Con­firmed batch­e­lor” is a term that was used up until the mid 20th cen­tu­ry as a euphamism for gay, in a time when a man could­n’t be out in main­stream soci­ety.

  23. Hang out a book stores — guys are always hit­ting on me while I’m seri­ous­ly try­ing to mem­o­rize CSS code for rel­a­tive posi­tion­ing!

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