Grooming a bachelor

Since it’s the marrying, merry month of June, your magistrates have decided to remain relevant by scratching off hang-ups about their single sense in favor of rubbing on the relationship itch so as to numb their nerves for the Great Hitch. Honey does not have any problems with this since she’s a gurrrl anyway who’s presumed to know what to do when the time comes (until that time comes, lighten up on your rabid feminism! — Argee).

On the other hand, Argee may be in big trouble. Being a swinging bachelor for most parts of his life (’coz he got married thrice in high school — inside a wedding booth), he is supposed to be the stereotypical guy who believes in life, liberty and — pun intended — the happiness of pursuit. Being footloose and fiancee-free once gave him free license to make a fool of himself every time a skirt crossed his path.

But there comes a time in a bachelor’s life when his travails of avoiding the opportunity to make some woman miserable must end. There will always be a lady-in-waiting who’ll always be singled out for martyrdom, and be the nth victim of his wiles and woes. And just for this reason, women have appealed in for a cease-and-desist order from the Court — in utmost vain.

After all, making the Big Switch to the Great Hitch from being a baboon-bachelor into a gentleman-groom is no easy transition. It took thousands of years for the Neanderthal to develop a brain above his waist before evolving into a citizen belonging to the species called Homo Sapiens. So expect no sudden Darwinian leap into the next evolutionary phase to erase such annoying habits and traits.

And this must be the reason why barbaric bachelor behavior is usually considered a bane for brides and bride wannabes who take the blind leap into the abyss of marital bliss only to be mixed up in mess later on with the ex-groom, present-husband who exhibits traits of a gorilla in the wild.

With little doubt, bachelor barbarism is a congenital defect that some men find difficult to outgrow even when in the gasping threshold of saying "I do" or when in the mean maelstrom of marriage. "Hindi magsawa sa pagkabinata" is a common complaint among girlfriends or wives who dread more the prospects of marrying or having married a bachelor-barbarian than not getting married at all.

Trust Pfizer to come up with Viagra and yet find no pill for womanizing, which is adrenaline for those belonging to the breed. Symptoms include keeping a little black book that contains the names of all the ladies and the tramps who, as Julio Iglesias discreetly suggests, traveled in and out his door. For each, just dedicate a curse and a voodoo doll with a lifetime supply of needles and pins. The conventional method is, of course, to shove the little black book up his behind.

A bachelor can’t seem to unlearn his follies with felines especially when he is supposedly tied up in an exclusive relationship. Blame his constant failures at fidelity to his long years of enjoying the thrills and frills of living on his own and as he so pleases. This carefree, strike-anywhere, devil-may-care outlook and lifestyle is perceived as something that cannot even be solved by the maturity that comes along with adulthood ("When choosing men, go for bungling and immature bagitos. They never mature anyway." — Honey)

From the point-of-view of bachelors like Argee who have finally caught the dreaded Big "C" of Romance (Commitment, we mean), they recognize a need for them to reform from their bad, bad bachelor barbarisms without having to enroll in a dog school. But then again, pray to the heavens for a miracle — teaching old dogs new tricks is like teaching a bachelor to behave like a bitch.