Bachelorette Parties (people, not activity) : 3.0 of 6.0

Good for the ego, bad for the soul. Twice now in three months I’ve been attacked by a swarm of hopelessly intoxicated Desperadas. The first time I was just sitting with my friends when they sent a representative to come over and ask me what color my socks were. That was the more indirect mode. They would, thereafter, lure me into a ten-minute conversation, a drink purchase, and a quick smooch with the bride. The second time, at the karaoke bar Saturday night, they chose the more direct method of just going straight to molestation, kneeling, and kissing my microphone hand while saying things like “Sing it to me baby” and “I would re-virginize myself for you.” Now, I’ve never attended a Bachelorette “party” or “bar crawl,” but I have been incorporated now, a couple times, amoeba-style.

I feel bad for the guy. Really, I do. I’m certainly not going to marry some chick who would feel inclined to behave this way the night before our wedding. Of course, I feel like any guy who would marry a girl like that is probably partaking in similar activities himself, concurrently. And that quiets my mind a bit.

Now, as a young man of good health and stature who’s been single for almost a year now, and who hasn’t gotten any play (and that was play I ultimately regret) in more than five months despite being enrolled in a full-time summer program where the male-to-female ratio was better than eight to one, it feels kind of good to receive positive attention from the opposite sex without having really tried. However, the reality is that, as Jessica so adroitly put it, I seem to “attract women at the height of their desperation.” It also happens to be the dale of their sobriety, but why even bother to mention that—really. The important thing is that Bachelorette parties don’t tend to be the brightest of souls, but they are good for giving false hope to an otherwise vacant lot of a crotch.

I can mull over whether false hope is better than no hope at all or whether an ego boost is really what I need during a dry spell that’s mostly my fault in the first place or whether romance is governed by the mind or the loins or the Fates, but it has been my experience that it—romance, that is—just kind of happens, hope or no hope. So, Bachelorette parties, you are good for a temporary high, but you only lead to a dismal realization of contextual fragility, and you leave me back where I started, hands on the wheel, plenty of gas, and no map.