“Why are you still single?” It’s a Trojan Horse question. People wheel it out as a compliment but the soldiers of insult leap out as soon as the question’s asked.

“Why are you still single?” is the diplomatic way of saying, “What’s wrong with you?”

Sure, on the surface it’s a compliment. I mean, you wouldn’t ask a homeless person the same question. Or a mentally ill person. Or a programming executive at Fox.

You don’t ask people who have nothing going for them why they’re going nowhere. It’s much more exciting to ask the dreaded “Single” question of somebody who seems to have it all — brains, brawn and beauty.

First, there’s a genuine mystery to it. Second, and most importantly, because there’s a certain glee in discovering the fatal flaw that keeps Mr. Perfect from finding Mr. Right.

I guess you’re lucky if people think enough of you to ask the question. Better to be seen as marriage material than radioactive material.

A group of us got together one day and a smug, happily married friend lorded it over us. “Why are you guys still single?” he asked, in the kind of tone people use when they actually have someone to go to the movies with.

One friend gave the universal reply of the Single & Wounded: “I just haven’t found the right guy.”

What a crock. I meet the “right guy” all the time. All single men do. The problem is, they never think you’re the right guy. Every man you think is Mr. Right thinks you’re Mr. Fright. And vice versa. You’re a stink bomb to the guys you want and “da bomb” to the guys you don’t.

It’s the kind of tragedy that comedy is made of.

The question never used to bother me when I wanted to be single. But now that I want to lose my singleness the way my friends in committed relationships want to lose their partners, it bothers me a lot.

First, of course, is the pity that always accompanies the question. Now, I enjoy being pitied as much as the next guy. You can get lots of married friends to pick up the tab that way. The problem with being pitied is that you become pitiful. And that’s when you realize even you wouldn’t date you.

I used to answer the “Why are you still single” question with a question of my own — “Why are you still married?” But that’s not a good maneuver if you want people to pay for the drinks. Then I tried putting a bumper sticker in my car that said, “I’m Dating Your Husband.” But the karma seemed all wrong.

I hate the “Single” question because the words echo in my ears long after my feeble attempt to answer it. It’s easy to be seduced into thinking that you’re somehow defective. After all, if you weren’t, wouldn’t you be in a relationship? Wouldn’t you at least be dating a lot? If you were all that, wouldn’t you be in demand?

Every single man who doesn’t want to be single asks himself these questions. The answers, like our plans for Saturday night, aren’t pretty.

And neither is some of the advice you get. A friend actually suggested that dating is like picking fruit at the grocery bin. “Don’t go for the perfect pieces,” he whispered conspirationally. “Go for the bruised fruit. It’s cheaper and they’ll be grateful.”

Presumably, he meant the store managers.

I do have one friend that actually gave me some good advice, though. “You’re single because you’ve chosen to be,” he said.

“Bullshit,” I said. “That may have been true when I wanted to be single. In those days I consciously chose to be single. But what about now? How can you say I’m ‘choosing’ to be single when I’m aching to be in a relationship?”

“Because,” he said, in an observation that took me weeks to understand. “You’ve chosen to believe in the things that keep you single.”