he Old Bachelor is the first play written by British playwright William Congreve, produced in 1693. The 'Old Bachelor' is Heartwell, 'a surly old pretended woman-hater', who falls in love with Silvia, not knowing her to be the forsaken mistress of Vainlove, and is lured into marrying her, only discovering her true character afterwards, from the gibes of his acquaintances. The parson who has been brought in to marry them, however, is in fact Vainlove's friend Belmour, who has assumed the disguise for the purpose of an intrigue with Laetitia, the young wife of an uxorious old banker, Fondlewife; and Heartwell is relieved to discover that the marriage was a pretence. The comedy includes the amusing characters of Sir Joseph Wittol, a foolish knight, who allows himself to be really married to Silvia, under the impression that she is the wealthy Araminta; and his companion, the cowardly bully, Captain Bluffe, who under the same delusion is married to Silvia's maid. The success of this comedy was in part due to the acting of performers Thomas Betterton and Anne Bracegirdle

This is the true story of a thirty-something single man in New York. A man who is employed, decent, and horny. A man hilariously combing his way through women in search of one who will make him stop searching. . . For the last four years, "This Dating Life" columnist Ron Geraci has chronicled his romantic (mis)adventures in the pages of Men's Health, offering readers a no-holds-barred look into one man's bare-naked dating life. His mission was simple: he dated whomever he could find in order to fill that month's dispatch and revealed everything--the good and bad, funny and catastrophic, triumphant and painful. The Bachelor Chronicles is Geraci's hilariously frank confession of his wild ride from struggling writer in the frenzied world of magazine journalism to his rise as the "male Carrie Bradshaw" with the scars to prove it. From the women he maniacally dated (lots) to the ones he enraged (even more) and enthralled (okay, you win some), Geraci's story careens through an insane New York City landscape that includes countless prospects, one lesbian, two therapists, a high-priced matchmaker, possible liposuction, incredible and not-so-incredible-but-at-least-frequent sex, dating addiction, destroyed relationships as an occupational hazard, blossoming alcoholism, porn, waking up in apartments where no sane man should find himself, perverse mating schemes, noble motivations, desperate loneliness, and the near-constant yearning for a stable life with one woman. Part cautionary tale, part dating survival guide, The Bachelor Chronicles is an emotionally naked, frequently hilarious peek into the male mind and modern romance by a guy honest enough to tell it like it is.