I Was A 'COSMO' Bachelor of the Month

One September morning in 1991, I took a phone call that changed my life:

"Michael," said the voice on the other end, "This is Cosmopolitan magazine. You've been chosen our 'Bachelor-of-the-month' for November!" "Yeah, right ... ha! Who is this really?"
"Seriously, this is Lisa Simmons at Cosmo. Call me back if you want verification... I need to interview you, and we're coming up on deadline."
I dialed the number, and sure enough it rang true. "But how did you find me?" I inquired.
"A friend of yours sent us a photo of you and a letter of recommendation. The last two lines of the letter clinched it."
"What?" I asked in trepidation. "'... Michael Modzelewski is a man for the '90s. He's into the environment, takes better care of his body than his BMW, and because of his fascinating life experiences, would no doubt bring more into a woman's life than she could dare dream of!"
I blushed over the telephone. "This is all too much...let me call you back."
I then phones my publicist at HarperCollins in New York, who convinced me to go for it. My first book, Inside Passage: Living with Killer Whales, Bald Eagles, and Kwakiutl Indians, based on an 18-month Robinson Crusoe-like stay on a wilderness island in the Inside Passage to Alaska, was then out in hardcover. And as my publicist said, "You can't buy that kind of publicity!"
So, I said yes to Cosmo. And I braced myself.
"Michael, your life is about to change," Simmons advised. "First of all get an unlisted phone number and a P.O. box for all the mail - believe me, you'll receive an amazing amount of mail. In fact, the editors are betting that you will break the record for the most letters because not only are you handsome, but what you do is so creative and interesting..."
So began a journey more satisfying, intense and terrifying than any I had embarked on before. I soon learned that being surrounded by killer whales, wolves and grizzly bears was tame - compared to entering the dating jungle.
When the November Cosmo hit the stands, the mail floodgates were opened. This shy, unassuming nature writer was on the same page with Robin Williams and the barely clothed actresses Lolita Davidovich and Lisa Hartman. and I had Cosmo's "stamp of approval."

Photos and racy panties

Every day, when I stuck my hand into the rented mailbox at the Copy Center, I pulled out scores of letters, all vying for attention.
I had never before seen so much purple and pink ink, revealing photos and padded mailers holding bras and racy panties.
Even the stationary was enticing: lacy paper that was sealed with a kiss (the red lipstick impressions providing very personal postmarks). And many of the missives were scented - so much that one warm day while the mail was locked in the car for an hour, I returned to an odoriferous outpouring: "Gardenia passion" was overwhelming "poison"; "Obsession" clashing with "My sin."
I learned geography all over again reading letters from Indian Orchard, Maine; Hope, Ark.; Truth or Consequences, N.M.; Eagle, Alaska. Then the air mail envelops started arriving from the Cayman Islands, South Africa, Tahiti, Germany, Japan, Mongolia, Poland, England, The Philippines.
These Cosmo women were adventurous and aggressive, tracking down my phone number by having the operator check "all surrounding towns". And the phone calls were smoldering.
"Hi, Michael, this is Mandy from Tallahassee. It's nice 'n hot here, and ya know, when it's like this...." Beep-beep. Call waiting.
"Hiii, Mi-chaaaa-el. It's Desiess from Huuu-stun. Remember me? On naights like this..."
Beep-beep. And so it would go - calls from all corners and many lessons in national meteorology.
One day, a computer-hacker friend came over and suggested that we chart the responses on the computer and see if most of the letters were coming from a particular part of the country.
Two days later, he called back with an interesting discovery: The letter-writers were mostly Southern women, by a 4-1 ratio.
I called a friend in Atlanta and asked her why. "What's your take on this? Why the South?"
"That's easy," she responded. "We've all grown up on Gone With the Wind and we're looking for Rhett. We're lookin' for a man who's a tad bit reckless and very, very caring. Men use romance for the first couple of months to hook you; then the well goes dry. Rhett is on the Endangered Species List. Today, you're more than likely to meet Bigfoot than Rhett Butler!"

• Then the dating began, both with women who lived near me in California and women who flew in to see me from all over America:
  
• The dinner date (I cooked) for a Miss Teen California. (At 10 p.m., she called her mother: "Mom, he's a perfect gentleman.")
  
• A weekend with a model from L.A., who, when I asked if she wanted to see the sights in San Francisco, replied: "When I first get there I don't want to see anything. I want to hear the click of your apartment door behind us..."
  
• The grueling bike ride up and down Mount Tam with Jill the triathlete talking all the while about men and women being from two different planets.
  
• Meeting a real Barbie doll - a model who "imitates" her at department store promotions.

Letter from true love

Finally, the Day of Destiny arrived. I opened a letter so outstanding that the words jumped off the page and into my heart. I raced home and called the writer - Paula Grecco of Boynton Beach.
I was immediately attracted to her because she didn't need me. No damsel in distress waiting to be rescued here. she had been successful on her own in many fields. She was a beautiful, smart and feminine feminist.
Our courtship took place all over the world. :Would you like to go to Aruba for lunch?" Paula, the flight attendant, asked. "Paris for the weekend?"
During one of her layovers in San Francisco, I went to her hotel room an hour before her arrival and created a treasure hunt. A dozen long-stemmed roses welcomed her, with a note telling her to look under the pillows. There she found gift-wrapped lingerie and a note leading to a piece of jewelry in the bureau's top drawer. When she followed the "map" into the bathroom, the tub was filled with ice, chilling the champagne and sushi.
When I knew I wanted to marry her, I wanted a proposal to catch her off-guard. I bought freezer wrap, unrolled it 25 feet and on the back side painted: "PG, WILL YOU MARRY ME?"
I went to the airport to pick her up. A hundred people were waiting for the plane Paula was coming in on. I asked for volunteers. Half of the group stood up and held out the banner. Paula walked down the jetway, turned the corner into the airport and stopped, knocked back on her heels.
"Well?" I said, stepping in front of the banner and going down on bended knee.
She nodded her head, crying. The crowd cheered and wrapped the banner around us.
Romance, romance - love and life is fueled by romance. Women have known this forever. We men are beginning to catch on.
From all the Cosmo research, I'm now writing a new book, Looking for Rhett: romance in the 1990s, and Paula and I are enjoying Palm Beach: An afternoon treasure hunt and tryst at The Breakers; long, romantic dinners at Charley's Crab; moonlit walks on the beautiful beaches.