By Michelle Alerte
Every man wants to get married. Why not to you? Single Man Married Man, a book dealing with breakups, make-ups, disappointments, and successes when it comes to love, gives readers a sneak peek into the male psyche by way of eight men.
Single Man Married Man is about “changing the narrative behind relationships” as it pertains to the perception disparity between men and women, Pervis Taylor III, co-author and the book’s resident life coach, said.
Authored by eight men, the book provides perspectives from married, single and divorced men. Their answers and point of views are all based on questions they received from women, co-author, Jickael Bazin, said. “It’s not a book telling women what to do, nor is it bashing women in any way.”
The book started as most great ideas normally do, organically.
“I just wanted to find a woman for my friend Frank,” said Jean Alerte, co-author of the book. Alerte wanted to use his experience as a happily married man, to help his friend and co-author Frank Gateau, find that someone special. He suggested Gateau approach women with questions about relationships who entered his Bedford-Stuyvesant yogurt shop, Brooklyn Swirl.
“Once we realized how prevalent certain questions were, we created a questionnaire to get other male opinions on the ten most common questions,” Alerte said.
At first answers came in from the men in Alerte and Gateau’s inner circle but it quickly exploded, with people sharing the questionnaire with their networks also. The questionnaire and the interactions in his shop allowed the idea for the book to crystalize.
“Everyday women would come in saying men don’t want to get married. Then there would be men coming in saying there are no good women to marry. And I thought, ‘wait there has to be some way to connect the two groups,’” Alerte said.
Alerte then solicited input from different men in various relationship stages to cover the spectrum of single, married, and divorced male views on love. Other authors were added to increase the variety of perspectives and offer readers an array of angles to view relationships.
“I think the dynamics of eight different perspectives, eight different relationship statuses, the Q & A writing and the variation in ages sets us apart from other relationship books,” co-author Dj Fadelf Jackson, said. “We’re coming from a point of true life experiences and not what we think life or relationships should be, according to ‘society’s rule book’.”
The chemistry between the authors is part and parcel of the books rapid-fire success and popularity. They have been featured on Fox News, The Today Show, Daily Mail, and more,
“The other men’s perspectives helped me to see myself more clearly,” Gateau, said. “For example, I saw that patience is something I really need to work on if I want to take a relationship to the next level.”
While working with eight different authors had its challenges, the authors all shared in an extremely positive experience.
“It was a great working with my co-authors,” Bazin, said. “I knew they were all hard-working, determined, well-spoken, and most importantly, we all had common goals as to what we wanted to achieve by coming together.”