Karl Klockars

For those of you who just came in, hi, good to see you, coffee and donuts are right over there, and before we get this meeting to order, why don’t you go back and peruse our the minutes of our last few gatherings.

You’ll recall that we have:

• Covered Trader Joe’s and shoe shopping and more here,
• Taken stock of chick flicks and fuzzy puppies here,
• Discussed Sex, and it being in the City here,
• …and hung out in leafy Ravinia here.

Now that we’re up to today, let’s get started with our most recent lesson:  the cooking class.  A million years ago, I was gifted the very kind offering of a class at our local boutique overpriced Emeril-shat-here food merchandise store.  They don’t have anything there that I wouldn’t rather buy at a Chinese grocery store or a restaurant wholesaler.  But – they do some cool stuff with their classes that I won’t go into detail about unless they decide to give me money.

I have taken these classes in the past, and always showed up as the third wheel, the lone straggler screwing up the table of Mom & daughters, the single weirdo cooking guy that only likes learning about French food and the like, and recipient of “what the hell are you doing here” glances.  I never put together the glorious ways this could work out for you, oh Ever-Present Male Single Reader.

It was at this most recent class that timing worked out serindipitously for me, and could be worked to extreme advantage for you.  I walked into a room that consisted of:  4 couples, making up 4 women and 4 men.  There was a table of three mid-thirties single hens using the class as an excuse to drink wine on a Tuesday.  And then there was me.  And there was also one other lone straggler…who happened to also be female.

Now, before we go any further, let’s reiterate the fact that this is the Married Guy’s Guide to excessive amounts of singledom wisdom.  At no point did the interactions between myself and this other female ever enter the realm of “questionable,” let alone “actionable” in terms of “things that a guy who’s hitched shouldn’t do.”  Not even in the slightest, because if I’m going to throw away everything I’ve worked for to this point, I’m also going to get a flying car and a knighthood out of the deal.  And even that probably wouldn’t be a sweet enough deal.  Dig?

But!  I’m not so disconnected from reality to say to you that if I were a swinging single out on the town for a party-filled night of cooking with beer, I very well could have made an interpersonal connection not completely based on only food.  I’m telling you, guys – get your knives sharpened and dive headfirst into Iron Chef Singles Bar.

Here’s what I would do, and I’m only trying to help, because your ridiculous ass is hanging out at the sports bar sucking back High Lifes and not getting the pots and pans out and getting hands on with meat.  If you take my meaning, when I say meat.  I mean…”meat.”

Get yourself you and one of your friends together, lay off the call liquor for a few days and save up to get yourself in the door at one of these places.  Get a night class, where some upwardly mobile professional women might be out for an evening of relaxation and education.  (Them smart ones are the best catches!)

Here’s where some schemery comes in:  They know exactly how many people are scheduled, and can probably figure out exactly who’s with what and what kind of social makeup is going to fill the room.  “Donate” an extra ten or twenty bucks to the person in charge to make sure that you two swinging gentlemen get matched up with a couple equally vivacious ladies.  Either that, or count on the beneficial spirit of the cosmos to throw you into a positive mix, but I tend to err on the side of “make it happen.”

From there, you can pretty much take it on your own, but suffice to say that any male in this society who has an “interest” in being a highly evolved cooking animal is appealing to the female of the species.  If you can blurt out a few intelligent-seeming bits of information about preferring Mario Batali on the Food Network or that episode of No Reservations that was just on, your stock continues to rise. (Is that a financial joke, or is it an actual joke about stock?  You decide.)

You’ll be wrist to wrist in a pile of vegetables.  You’ll be able to playfully discuss each of your inabilities to chop properly as you’d like.  You’ll dip your spoon deep inside of her saucepot.  You’ll put your roast gently into her convection oven.  You’ll…do it later.  And when I say “do it…” I mean “do it.”

In addition, you’ll be able to look around at the tables of couples that surround you, and look deep into the eyes of the whipped-down husbands and boyfriends that populate those tables. All of those guys aren’t there willingly, and it shows.  They’re trapped in the whims of their women, and you’re a strong, free, powerful man in control of your life and destiny and you chose to be there.

Their eyes will say to you, “I’m here against my free will – she thought it would be a good way to spend time together.  Why wouldn’t we just go to a bar and eat chicken wings?  But you…you, sir, have worked this to your advantage.  You’re going to leave this place with some roasted tenderloin underneath your arm and a potential new sexual partner on the other.  I’m only going to get…to do this again sometime.”  It is full, as the internets enjoy saying, full of win.

You don’t have to spend your entire life at cooking classes.  But when you want a break from the parade of bar sluts and drunken whores you’re used to taking home, maybe give it a shot.  Take it from me, and the Married Guy’s Guide to Not Sleeping Alone Every Night of Your Pathetic Single Life.

(This is where I turn into the camera, grin, and give a thumbs up.  It’ll work better when we film the pilot.  What are you waiting for?  Haven’t you signed up for something yet?  Come on!)