Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1062, Being a Bachelor.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1062.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Visit our website at eslpod.com.
Become a member of ESL Podcast and download the Learning Guide for this episode.
You can also take a look at our ESL podcast store, which has some additional courses in business and daily English.
This episode is a dialogue between Iris and Alex about remaining unmarried.
Let's get started.
This isn't another attempt at matchmaking, is it?
Jerry is a confirmed bachelor, and he's not looking to marry or become involved in a relationship.
He's not a confirmed bachelor.
In this neighborhood, with so many single women, he's an eligible bachelor.
You mean in this neighborhood full of old spinsters?
Stop trying to set him up with one of them.
How do you know he doesn't want a relationship?
Maybe he's just shy and needs a little prodding.
Maybe he has a fear of commitment and we can all help him overcome it.
Maybe he just wants to be left alone by meddling neighbors and ladies on the prowl.
There are many benefits to remaining a bachelor.
You mean living a celibate and empty life?
You're making too many assumptions.
How can you say that?
Would any bachelor have to have this conversation with anyone, ever?
We're listening to a conversation between Iris and Alex.
Iris begins by saying, I'm thinking of inviting Simone and Jerry over for dinner.
Alex says, this isn't another attempt at matchmaking, is it?
Iris wants to invite a, But Alex suspects he thinks that what she's really doing is trying to be a matchmaker.
To matchmake M-A-T-C-H, M-A-K-E means to try to introduce one person, one single person, one unmarried person, to another person that you think they might like.
So this is what matchmaking is.
And in some cultures there are matchmakers who help arrange marriages, help young people find each other.
This is done, of course, informally in all cultures.
Your parents try to introduce you to a nice girl or a nice boy that they think you may want to marry.
Alex says Jerry is a confirmed bachelor and he's not looking to marry or become involved in a relationship.
One of the two people that Iris wants to invite to dinner is Jerry.
But according to Alex, Jerry is a confirmed bachelor.
A bachelor, B-A-C-H-E-L-O-R is a man who is not married and typically is not involved in a romantic relationship, one who chooses to live alone.
A confirmed bachelor would be a man who has probably decided he's never going to marry.
Iris says he's not a confirmed bachelor, referring to Jerry, of course.
In this neighborhood with so many single women, he's an eligible bachelor.
The term eligible, E-L-I-G-I-B-L-E, bachelor, refers to a man who is not in a relationship, who is not married, but would be a desirable partner, someone who a woman would want to marry, perhaps because he has a lot of money,
And or he's good looking.
I was neither of those things when I got married.
I'm still neither of those things.
Alex says, you mean in this neighborhood full of old spinsters?
Alex uses the word spinsters S-P-I-N-S-T-E-R-S to describe older unmarried women who are considered by some too old to get married.
The word spinster is a very negative way of describing an older unmarried woman.
I certainly would not recommend using that term, but it was popular many years ago.
Alex is using it as an insult here.
He's insulting the women who live in that neighborhood, saying that they would not be good matches for Jerry.
Alex says to Iris, stop trying to set him up with one of them.
To set someone up is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to arrange for someone to meet a potential romantic partner.
It's similar to matchmaking.
To set someone up is to try to get someone to go out on a date with another person when you think the two people might be interested romantically in each other.
I was set up once for a date, what we would call in this instance a blind, B-L-I-N-D date.
A blind date is when you don't know the other person, but you both know someone who sets you up, who arranges for you to go on a date.
I did this once.
It didn't work out very well.
My father and mother, however, met on a blind date, and they had 11 children, so sometimes it works.
Just not for me.
Alex is telling Iris that she should stop trying to set Jerry up with these women.
Iris says, how do you know he doesn't want a relationship?
Maybe he, Jerry...
He's just shy and needs a little prodding.
To prod, P-R-O-D someone, is to encourage someone to do something.
To sort of push them to do something.
Iris says maybe he has a fear of commitment and we can all help him overcome it.
A fear of commitment is a feeling of worry and anxiety when you think about, in this case, spending your entire life with another person.
You might decide that you are too afraid to get married, to be in a long-term romantic relationship.
That's a fear of commitment.
The word commitment comes from the verb to commit, which means to promise to do something, to agree to do something.
A fear of commitment would be the opposite, that you don't want to commit to anyone.
Iris thinks that she and Alex can help...
Jerry to overcome his fear of commitment.
To overcome O-V-E-R-C-O-M-E means to deal with a difficult problem or to solve a difficult problem, especially after a very long time of being challenged by the problem.
There was a famous song of the civil rights movement in the 1960s in the United States.
We shall overcome, meaning we will eventually solve this problem.
We will eventually be able to, in the case of the African American community in the United States, be free of the discrimination that they were experiencing at that time.
But the verb to overcome can be used in any circumstance where you have a very difficult situation, one that is perhaps long-lasting, where you eventually succeed.
You solve the problem or get over the problem.
Alex says maybe he just wants to be left alone forever.
Meddling M-E-D-D-L-I-N-G means being involved in other people's private affairs, especially when those people don't want this person involved in their affairs.
To meddle as a verb means to get involved in things, especially private matters, that don't concern you, that you shouldn't be involved in.
That's what Alex thinks Iris is doing.
He's meddling in the personal affairs of Jerry.
He says that he thinks Jerry just wants to be left alone by meddling neighbors, meaning he doesn't want people bothering him in this way.
He also wants to be left alone by ladies on the prowl, P-R-O-W-L.
To be on the prowl means to be looking for something, searching for something.
It's often used in the dating world if we could call it that to refer to someone who is looking for a romantic or sexual partner.
Alex says, there are many benefits, many good things to remaining a bachelor.
Iris says, you mean living a celibate and empty life?
Celibate C-E-L-I-B-A-T-E means deciding not to have sexual relations with another person often, but not always, for religious reasons.
Iris obviously thinks that being celibate means having an empty life.
This is rather a prejudiced opinion on Iris's part, but I suppose some people do think that.
Alex says, you're making too many assumptions.
Assumptions A-S-S-U-M-P-T-I-O-N-S are things that you believe to be true, even though you often don't have any proof or evidence that they are true.
Alex says you don't know the first thing about his life.
To not know the first thing about someone is to be completely unfamiliar with someone or something.
I could say I don't know the first thing about repairing or fixing my computer.
I don't know what to do.
I'm completely ignorant.
That would be a true statement.
Alex says in many ways a bachelor's life is idyllic.
Idyllic, I-D-Y-L-L-I-C, means perfect, very happy, enjoyable.
To say the bachelor life is idyllic is to describe it as though it were the best situation you could be in.
And that's what Alex is saying.
Iris is puzzled.
She doesn't agree.
She says, how can you say that?
Meaning, how is it possible for you to think that way?
What are your reasons for thinking that way?
Alex says, would any bachelor have to have this conversation with anyone ever?
What Alex is saying here in the last line of the dialogue is that the very fact that he has to have this conversation with his wife is an indication of the good side of being a bachelor.
In other words, he wouldn't have to argue with his wife if he were a bachelor, and bachelors don't have to argue with anyone because they don't have anyone to argue with.
In some ways, Alex is perhaps making a joke here since he and Iris are married.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I'm thinking of inviting Simone and Jerry over for dinner.
This isn't another attempt at matchmaking, is it?
Jerry is a confirmed bachelor, and he's not looking to marry or become involved in a relationship.
He's not a confirmed bachelor.
In this neighborhood with so many single women, he's an eligible bachelor.
You mean in this neighborhood full of old spinsters?
Stop trying to set him up with one of them.
Maybe he just wants to be left alone by meddling neighbors and ladies on the prowl.
There are many benefits to remaining a bachelor.
You're making too many assumptions.
You don't know the first thing about his life and whether he's happy or not.
In many ways, a bachelor's life is idyllic.
How can you say that?
Would any bachelor have to have this conversation with anyone ever by listening to the wonderful scripts by our wonderful script writer, Dr Lucy Say?
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
