"Those Textbooks Look Really Heavy. Well, I Guess I'll Be Seeing You"

I’m not sure about you but when I see a lady struggling with a bunch of books or a heavy piece of furniture I feel inclined to help. Call it being nice, raised well, part of living in a society, treating others as you would like to be treated, the feeling to want to help is there.

Yeah, well, that's all stopped now. It's been a good run, but I really won't be doing that any more.

You see, I have a bad back. I say that not to get symphathy but to shed light on a silent epidemic among 28-35 year old single men. It's been 10 months since I sprained a lower vertebra lifting the end of my bed away from the wall and the discomfort is still there. I guess it becomes something you live with, but it's even harder to live with this truth: Nothing makes you more of a jerk, more of a liability in a relationship, more useless in a move, more distrusted by society than getting a bad back. You are forever locked into an endless barage of no-win situations.

Last week, my next door neighbor in my building was moving what looked like really heavy boxes of old textbooks. I say looked heavy because she and her friend were edging them slowly toward the steps with their feet. Now I'm faced with a serious conundrum. If I offer to help, I will have one visit to the chiropractor, two sleepless nights and 4 days recovery time. If I don't, I have made a pretty poor first impression on my neighbor and she will dismiss me as a jerk (FYI: I never actually see any of my neighbors and wasn't really convinced actual people live in the other 4 units until now). No-win situations often lead to the most selfish choice.

In the intervening seconds between opening my door, sitting down pathetically on my couch, and her kicking her textbooks down the stairs cursing that jerk of a neighor in 21B, I wondered where it all went wrong. The irony is almost too much to bear - not helping someone with their textbooks when you grew up with John Hughes and after school specials, knowing the best way to meet someone is to wait for her to have her textbooks fall to the ground and then bend down to help as your eyes lock.

And in the long term relationship outlook, it becomes a point of disclosure that's right up there with having kids and finances. After an argument it's much better for your significant other to think "Well, at least he can move those big white rocks I picked out for the garden" than "Jesus, he can't even move those big white rocks I picked out for the garden."

On any given day in Boston it's kinda sorta cold. On any given day a good number of single men's backs kinda sorta hurt. Kinda sorta pretty much sums up the single man. We are kinda sorta about most things in life which is why we are single. It's only in knowing exactly what we want - the kinda stuff you can't read about in any textbook - that gives us the spine we need to live a more meaningful life.