-In my last column, I wrote that I have been single (and loving it) for almost three years, but recently felt it was time to settle down with a girlfriend.  An unintended consequence of this revelation was the onslaught of emails I received from potential suitors.  While I would rarely if ever date someone who I met solely via email, the experience of having so many single and willing women thrust before me has made me doubt my initial inclination.  Perhaps being single in New York isn’t so bad!  Then again, having a stable partner-in-crime doesn’t sound uninviting either.  The girlfriend vs. single debate is as old as man (or in my case, frat boy) itself.   Pondering this question has left me vexed, confused, and exhausted.  To settle down or saddle up – that is the ultimate question, that is the bind of the harried man.

-Here’s one argument for settling down.  A few weeks ago, I went out and got drunker than a guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live.  I met a cute brunette and at the end of the night we went back to my apartment.  As things were getting hot and heavy, she remarked that she thought my bedroom looked familiar.  I said that I thought that she herself looked familiar.  Then we both realized it.  We had actually gotten together over a year ago, but both of us were too drunk to remember it.  That’s right, folks.  I’m hooking up in reruns.

-Here’s an argument for playing the field.  I never want to be that guy who brings his girlfriend to the Super Bowl like my buddy did.  That is like the ultimate man-sin.  I had to spend most of the first half fielding inane questions from this chick like, “Um, is the punt returner on offense or defense?”  Darling, it’s called special teams, now will you please get out of the way of the TV!  To make matters worse, my buddy bought his girlfriend boxes in our pool.  Of course she won the first three quarters.  When the Bucs scored that meaningless touchdown with two seconds left, preventing her from winning all the money, it was the most exciting moment of the entire day.

-Fortunately, I have a large support network of good guy friends to offer advice when I run into girl trouble.  Unfortunately, I’m starting to think their advice might not be too helpful after all.  One of my buddies is twenty-nine, which to me, as a twenty-three-year-old, is old and wise.  He usually pushes the relationship side of the argument.  He believes that the stability and security of a girlfriend far outweighs the debauchery of the single life.  Then I found out that he’s been engaged twice but never married.  That’s just great, I’m getting dating advice from a fool who’s got more rings than Warren Sapp!

-Then I turned to an old high school buddy who is currently in a pretty solid relationship.  Or so I thought.  The kid is so neurotic about his girlfriend that when she came over unexpectedly one night, he literally dove across the room to hide a porno magazine in his gym bag.  I’m like, dude, relax, I’m pretty sure she knows you beat off occasionally.  Of course, he forgot that post-9/11 his office searches everyone coming into the building.  The next day the security guard pulled the magazine out of his bag in front of all of his co-workers.  Idiot.

-One of the first obstacles in the New York dating scene is determining who is actually single.  About the only people we can safely eliminate are the engaged and married chicks, who are distinguished by their rings (and, coincidently shouldn’t even be out in the first place).  For every other girl, it’s a crapshoot.  For instance, the other day I met this really cute girl who just moved in down the hall from me.  I have absolutely no idea if she has boyfriend or not and I certainly can’t flat-out ask.  That’s why I am proposing a new convention – the Single Ring.  That’s right, all single w men simply wear a silver ring on their right pinky, thereby signaling availability.  Now wouldn’t that make life a whole lot easier?  (By the way, to the blonde in 5G, if you’re reading this and are single, stop by and say hello!)

-Recently I’ve been running into a perplexing breed – girls still dating their boyfriends from college.  You know how this generally works: they’ve been dating on again off again since sophomore year, he cheated on her, she takes him back, they took some time off after graduation but now they’re back together because she can’t be alone, it’ll never work out long-term but it’s convenient for now, blah, blah, blah.  Ladies, guys, it’s time to move on – free up some ass for the rest of us.

-OK, time to ask some more friends for advice.  One of my close friends recently got out of the Israeli Army.  He’s been to hell and back.  I figure, of all my buddies, this guy has had some real life experience, he definitely knows what’s what.  We went out for a few drinks the other night.  He gave me some really great perspective on things.  When we left the bar, I thought, you know, this guy really has his head on his shoulders.  Then we realized his car was gone.  The spot where he parked was actually marked “NYPD parking only” and he didn’t see it.  He got towed.  And this is a guy who used to drive a tank.  Maybe I should talk to someone else…

-I’ve never seen it happen except on TV, but for some reason, I have this feeling that I’m going to get a drink thrown in my face one of these days.  You can only be single for so long without pissing some crazy chick off.  I think my luck is running out.

-So I’ve been studying all of my friends who are in relationships.  I’ve found that they usually occur in extremes.  Some I always see with their significant other.  Others I rarely see together.  According to my research, it is the latter group that seems to get along much better.  I’m not sure if these couples actually spend less time together or if they just spend less time together with other people.  In either case, clearly less is more.  I’ve also discovered that if you have pictures of you and your girlfriend squeezed into a mall photo booth, it’s a sure sign of impending disaster.

-And nothing is more of a deterrent to getting into a relationship than seeing my friends’ relationships with their ex-girlfriends.  Actually, most of my friends are not allowed to speak to or come within a thousand yards of their ex-girlfriends.  It makes things a lot less messy.  Of course, there is nothing an ex-boyfriend wants to know more than how miserable his ex is doing.  The other day I told my buddy that I saw his ex-girlfriend at the bar the night before.  He was like, “Really?  How did she look?  Was she fat?  I heard she was fat.  Please tell me she was fat.  That fucking whore.”  I was like, “Well, compared to that picture of you guys in the mall photo booth, she actually looked pretty good!”  He was not pleased by that comment.

-One thing I learned from my last relationship is the axiom that girlfriends and video games are mutually exclusive.  It’s true.  You just can’t spend that much time playing video games if you have a girlfriend.  That’s because when your girlfriend calls and asks what you’re doing and you respond “playing Vice City,” all she hears is “nothing honey, why don’t you come over and hang out?”

-Another strain of female I have learned to be wary of is the girl who has no girl friends.  Advantages: tends to party harder than your standard chick, more likely to let you spend time doing guy things (i.e. playing video games and watching PTI on ESPN).  Disadvantages: doesn’t bring out other hot chicks for your friends, more likely to be surrounded by dudes at all times.  Conclusion: definitely a keeper, just watch out for that old college boyfriend of hers.

-So far, the only definite things I know about women is that they are always cold, their feet hurt, and they spend most of their time at work emailing each other and checking their horoscope online.  That’s about as far as I’ve gotten.  Sometimes, I turn to my own girl friends for advice.  I’ll usually call my best friend first.  However, she’s the kind of friend that goes on and on and on and I just listen and say “uh-uh” every seven to ten seconds.  The last time I tried to talk to her she told me that she had been going to a psychic to discuss her own relationship problems.  And I’m wondering why she doesn’t have any girl friends.

-I also have a buddy from my old job, Rob, who is always trying to set me up.  At first I thought he was one of those guys whose judgment you could definitely trust.  But the first date he set me up on was a bust.  The second chick he suggested was even worse.  I’ve now downgraded him to “secondary confirmation status.”  I need at least one other trustworthy guy to see the girl before he sets me up with her.

-Which brings me to the single women who email me each week.  Believe me, I am very flattered, it’s just a problem of asymmetry of information.  AaronKaro.com features a full biography of me, several color pictures, and pages and pages of my deepest thoughts.  Chicks email me and all they say is, “Hey, I live in New York too, wanna go out?”  Now that’s just not fair.

-As always, here are random some things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-How come every time I go to book a flight online, I find the flight I want and say, you know what, I’ll just book this tomorrow – then I go back the next day and the price has gone up by about $900!?

-When did the dentist stop giving you a choice of what flavor toothpaste you want?  I went the other day and he automatically gave me that “industrial mint” paste.  What happened to pina colada and bubble gum flavor?  And I love when the dentist asks you to move your mouth and then commends you for doing it.  He’ll be like, “Just open your mouth a little wider.  Excellent!”  I always just want to say, “Well, you know, I’ve been practicing at home.”

-Is there anything more annoying than a computer mouse that doesn’t work well?  You know, you have to drag the thing the entire length of your desk just to move the cursor an inch?  I’m doing that right now…and it’s pissing me off!

-I have absolutely no idea when to use the word “whom.”  Hell, I’m a published author and it’s still just a shot in the dark for me.  Not even Microsoft Word knows the proper usage.  When I type the word “who” I always get that green squiggly line underneath.  When I right click it says, “We have no fucking clue either.”

-A few days ago, I finally got what I have been saving up for for a while – LASIK eye surgery.  Here’s the deal.  First you go in there and they show you a video about the procedure.  It shows a guy being operated on and the next thing you know he’s jet skiing.  I said, “Sign me up!”  Then a nurse asked me a few questions such as “Do you drink alcohol never, occasionally, or a lot?”  I was like, “Um, how about occasionally I drink a lot?”  The procedure itself lasts all of six minutes.  They sit you in a chair and tape your eyelids open Clockwork Orange-style.  When the laser is actually cutting your eye, you don’t really feel a thing, but it sort of smells.  My eyeballs happened to smell mesquite.  After the procedure, the same nurse told me to take prescription eye drops at breakfast, lunch, dinner, and before bed.  I said, “So 2pm, 5pm, 9pm and 3am?”  She replied, “Why don’t you just do it every four hours.  Wiseass.”  Almost immediately after the surgery I had better than perfect vision.  It’s truly amazing.  The best part was that I charged the whole operation on my American Express Membership Rewards card, so I got my eyes fixed and got tons of points toward that new optical mouse I’ve been wanting to get!

-I love watching these guys in the gym that feel the need to attach unnecessary amounts of weight to themselves while doing normal exercises.  Like the guy that wears wrist weights, ankle weights, and a belt around his waist with a forty-five pound plate hanging from it just to do chin-ups.  Then he can only do like two reps and he gets all pissed off.  Dude, lighten up.  Literally.

-Have you ever been working on the computer and a little warning box pops up when you do something?  Usually under the warning there is a box you can check that says, “Never show me this message again.”  I always think to myself – never?  Never?  I don’t know, that’s a pretty big commitment to make.  I’ll think I’ll keep it around just in case.

-Quote of the Month.  The more I hang out with med school kids, the more they scare the hell out of me.  One of my oldest and closet friends is a cancer survivor.  She stared Death in the eye and kicked him square in the nuts.  Now she’s in a really competitive medical school and while she is not shy about discussing her battle with the Big C, not everyone there knows about it.  A few weeks ago her class started their oncology unit.  When one of my friend’s classmates found out that she had been sick, he said, “You know, that’s really not fair, she knows all of this already.”  Wow man, you need to take it easy.  Start watching less “ER” and more “Scrubs.”

-Ever notice that no matter what he’s wearing, whenever you see a co-worker outside of the office in casual clothes, he always looks just a little off?

-So it looks like Sierra Mist soda is making a pretty big marketing push.  Too bad I’ve been drinking it for years.  It’s called Sprite.

-Sam Adams Light.  Bad commercials.  Worse beer.  Please, just give up now.

-You’re telling me they can transmit my voice as little bits of data through the air, across the country, from one cell phone to another, but they can’t get rid of that fucking green number 3 that’s stuck on the top right corner of my TV?

-I really think rap music is getting a little too violent lately.  In the past month, I’ve pulled over literally five times because I thought there was a cop behind me when it was actually siren sounds coming from the radio.

-I try to eat pretty healthy, but when I’m in a rush, occasionally I have to settle for McDonald’s.  What drives me crazy about Mickey D’s are the people that stand bewildered at the front of the line trying to decide what to order.  Dude, the menu hasn’t changed in thirty-five years, just get a #4 and get the fuck out of the way!

-I think the only thing worse than guys who wear those silly one-strap backpacks are guys who actually put their cell phone in that little pouch on the front of their one-strap backpack.

-New York is all about location.  Some people have not figured this out yet.  It cracks me up when a friend moves into an awesome new apartment in an out-of-the-way part of the city.  There’s just no point.  My buddy will be like, “Yo Karo, I just got this huge two-bedroom in the financial district, you have to come over to pre-game one night.”  I usually just say flat-out, “Listen man, that’s great, but I guarantee you that between now and when you move out, I will not see your apartment once.”

-I was at the bar the other night and while I was waiting for a drink, I started to shoot the shit with the guy standing next to me.  Big mistake.  He told me that he used to live in New York but had since moved away and was just visiting.  I asked him when it was that he lived here.  He was like, “Oh, from ’83 to ’87, 1989, 1992, and from ’95 to ’98.”  What?  The fool sounded like the back of a baseball card.

-Now that I have perfect vision, I have a lot of great eye material that I won’t be able to use anymore.  I won’t dump it on you all at once though, so here’s one good story.  A few months ago I went out to a club uptown and was having a grand old time when one of my contacts fell out.  Since I was too far away from home to go get another, I had to struggle with just one for the rest of the night.  If I looked through my bad eye, all the girls looked good, but when I opened my good eye, I saw the ugly reality.  So you could say instead of beer goggles, I had a beer monocle!  (I know, I know, I bet it’s jokes like these that make you glad I got eye surgery!)

-I’m concerned that Americans are getting way too lazy.  The other day I saw combination peanut butter and jelly in a jar.  Then I saw a commercial for no-rub contact lens solution (I had contacts for a decade and believe me, rubbing was the least of my concerns).  Now Hanes is promoting their “tagless t’s.”  Good thing, because all that tag ripping was making me too tired to spread both peanut butter AND jelly.  Finally, the other night my buddy Chi made the age-old mistake of opening a tab at the bar and then forgetting his credit card there.  Instead of going back the next day, he just cancelled it instead.  God help us all.

-How come whenever I am introduced to people who are supposedly “so like me” I hate them?

-And, finally, I think one of the reasons for my success is that I am a tireless self-promoter.  I am constantly calling and emailing people about my book, my column, and, hopefully, my future sitcom.  Sometimes, though, I don’t know when to keep my mouth shut.  The other day I called a radio station to see if I could get them to interview me.  They kept me on hold for like ten minutes.  When the guy finally got back on the line, I joked, “You know, you should really change your hold music, it’s absolutely terrible.”  The guy replied, “Actually, that was the radio station you were just listening to.”  Click.  Fuck me!

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