How to Sift Through All the Games Players to Find Mr. Right

Confessions of an Ex-Bachelor
by William July II

The popular relationship guru blows the whistle on perpetual bachelors, with wise words for women seeking nuptial-minded men.

A male radio host once chided William July for being so open about the playboy mentality. "Man, stop giving away all of our secrets to the women," the host said. But July, who has been happily married for six years, believes that this kind of secrecy and game playing is harmful to everyone. A self-proclaimed former "General in the Bachelor Corps," July now openly reveals the tricks of the bachelor trade to help women find guys who are genuinely ready for commitment. Confessions of an Ex-Bachelor delivers no-nonsense dialogue on:

• The three stages of bachelorhood, and how to tell whether your date will ever graduate past groom-a-phobia

• How to hold your man accountable and stand your ground — without making him feel trapped

• Overcoming cultural cues that make men see marriage as a life in chains

• Where to find your future groom

• How to translate a bachelor's double-talk

• Getting past the stereotypes of divorced men, "nice guys," and how men feel about being stepfathers

A must read for every single woman who wonders what her guy is really thinking, Confessions of an Ex-Bachelor is full of revelations and rewarding advice.

Chapter 1

Why Buy the Cow When You Can Get the Milk for Free?

The truth is simple, but it may not sound so good. The fact of the matter is that a man doesn't have to get married to have the comforts of being married. He can have sex. He can have companionship. He can have loyalty. He can have financial sharing or support. He can have children. Truth be told, he can have anything that a married man can get without making the commitment. This is especially true if he's a highly desirable man who knows how to play a good Don Juan act. What's happening is that men are realizing they can have everything without making a commitment, and that's exactly what some of them are doing. Marriage has become mainly an issue of responsibility and accountability, or lack thereof, for the man.

Limited Responsibility and Accountability

I really enjoyed the film Love and Basketball, and it perfectly illustrates a point about men not learning to be accountable for their own feelings and actions in a relationship. There was a climactic scene (no, not the strippoker-style one-on-one game!) in which Monica challenged Q to a game of one-on-one for his heart. This challenge was her attempt to win Q's heart two weeks before his scheduled marriage to another woman. Excuse me? This is after he absolutely dissed her in college, selfishly put his needs above hers, and then cheated on her and flaunted this fact right in her face in an attempt to hurt her feelings.

Yet Monica had enough love left in her heart for Q to challenge him to this game. In the film, the challenge worked and Monica won Q back. But in real life, it's not so simple. In real life, a man has to make some serious and significant changes after the type of rift Monica and Q had before he can be a man capable of making a real commitment and sticking to it. In reality, if this man didn't make a significant change in character and attitude, the marriage would be doomed to drama and divorce. In real life, one would have to ask, "Did he really change? How and why?" Unfortunately, men who don't learn to be accountable for their actions in relationships don't just magically get it by the next scene in time for the happy ending.

Yet relationships like Monica and Q's play out daily in the real world as well. Every day women are allowing men to do things they should be held accountable for in relationships but aren't. What's most alarming is hearing some of the excuses women make for these guys in their attempt to rationalize why they are remaining in a relationship with them. For example, Melody was living with Brian, whom she was going to marry. When she discovered she was pregnant, at the same time she discovered that Brian was cheating on her. To make matters worse, she learned that he had been cheating for quite a while and that the other woman was also pregnant. Their children were born only a few months apart. All this time Brian continued living with Melody. Eventually he decided he didn't want the relationship and left her, only to return months later wanting to move back in. Now Melody's wondering if he has changed and if she should give him another chance.

Melody and Brian's story is a perfect example of limited male responsibility and accountability. Melody is delusional to think Brian is in love with her. Moreover, he's not even acting responsibly toward her or their child. However, since Melody's got it fixed in her mind that he's the one for her, she's not reading the obvious facts in this terrible situation and is still asking for more.

Another example is Tonya and Darrell's so-called relationship, which occurred mainly within the four walls of her bedroom during the hours of 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. She knew he was seeing another woman in a nearby city because he had told her. But he complained to Tonya that his current girlfriend was too demanding and he was going to stop seeing her. Tonya wrote to ask me if I thought he would eventually stop seeing the other woman or if she was a fool for believing him. She even went on to say that she knew she was being foolish but she really loved this man and wanted to get him for her own.

Here's the real deal. If Tonya "gets" Darrell from the other woman, she won't have him anyway. Darrell has two women in two cities (that we know of) and he is getting all the sex, love, and attention he could ever want without being accountable or taking responsibility. This type of man isn't going to change. He doesn't have to because he's a single man with no accountability to the woman or the relationship. When given such an opportunity, it takes a man of high character not to take advantage of the situation. Some men won't take advantage, but if you keep wearing a sign that says "I'm available on your terms," even a good man may start to use you.

Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil

Why do women let men get away with limited to no responsibility and accountability? In a word, denial. Many women fall into this category when it comes to the way they respond to improperly behaving men. They simply live in denial of the obvious fact that they are in a relationship that's headed for a crash. He can be caught lying over and over, but she fixes the lies in her mind. He can be caught with evidence that he's cheating, but she pretends she doesn't see it. He can even be caught with another woman and explain his way out of that too. Eddie Murphy once joked about a man who's girlfriend caught him cheating. I'll paraphrase what the man said to his girlfriend: "You didn't see me. That wasn't me. It wasn't me . . . okay it was me. But we weren't making love. We were just having sex. I was only having sex with her." His humor pointed out the very real fact that men actually can pull off some really unbelievable stunts in relationships because some women want to be in denial for what they think is the sake of peace and stability, but it's a shaky peace and a costly stability at best.

How Bachelors Play Women

How do men get away with all this playing? Playing women doesn't require diabolical schemes or plots. These men just use some proven methods that work. More of this will be revealed later in the book, but for now, here's a primer on how bachelors play women.

Unavailability

Unavailability is a simple technique where the man is never available unless its convenient to him. Typically this means a man will be available only when he wants sex. It sounds like too obvious of a pattern but it works, particuarly if the man is a good conversationalist and can convince a woman that he really is that busy at work, or whatever his excuse for disappearing is.

Dangling the Carrot

In the dangling-the-carrot technique, the man always keeps the possibility of a relationship alive as a means of getting what he wants. In this method, a man intentionally gives the impression that he's always just on the verge of making a commitment. That way he can keep a woman focusing her attention on him and meeting his needs in a relationship without ever having to actually commit.

Lies, Lies, and More Lies

Some men don't use subtle techniques. Instead, they just lie. I once knew a guy who said that he just outright lied to women, literally telling them whatever they wanted to hear. He was a chameleon and it was working; I'd seen him with lots of different women and each seemed to be crazy about him. This is a dangerous situation because the relationship is built on deception. It's bound to come crashing down, and when it does, it often involves many innocent bystanders.

Copyright © 2003 by William July. Excerpted by permission of Broadway, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

About the Author

William July, II is a writer based in Houston, Texas. In l996 he published Brothers, Lust, and Love, which became an underground bestseller. A writer-in-residence for Houston's Writers in the Schools program, July is also a former reserve deputy sheriff.