Rational Male puts out another killer post. Still a young man, I haven’t given much thought about man caves, and banishment to the couch by my future wife. I haven’t seriously entertained the thought of marriage this young yet either I guess, unplugging will do that to a guy. There’s a saying I tell young(er) guys when they think they’ve found the one at an early age. If life is a race, you haven’t even arrived at the track yet, much less hit your stride.
The comments on on the RT article are worth reading, commenter fedrz forwards this
The Homelessness of Man – by G.K. Chesterton
While I highly recommend the full reading since it’s only 3 paragraphs this excerpt sums the passage;
“For the truth is, that to the moderately poor the home is the only place of liberty. Nay, it is the only place of anarchy. It is the only spot on the earth where a man can alter arrangements suddenly, make an experiment or indulge in a whim. Everywhere else he goes he must accept the strict rules of the shop, inn, club, or museum that he happens to enter”
“For a plain, hard-working man the home is not the one tame place in the world of adventure. It is the one wild place in the world of rules and set tasks.”
Commenter Candide drops knowledge;
“It is a very modern Anglosphere cultural phenomenon that married men live like servants in their own homes. First they fail to own the bedroom. Note when a couple have a fight, the man will go sleep on the couch or go somewhere else for a few nights, leaving the house to the master aka wife. In contrast, in a patriarchal culture, the wife will get kicked out of the bedroom or usually go back to her parents’ for a little while until they make peace.
It’s only a natural progression that the servant must find his own small shitty place in the house to keep his things and practically live there unless called upon for house work, paying bills and defending it, sacrificed if need be, on behalf of the master. (emphasis mine)
One of my staff at work just did this. He works like a maniac to pay for the land and the house, doing most of the wiring and renovating himself. In the first big fight after moving into what is rightly HIS house, he had to scramble to find a shitty apartment to sleep for a week, and now is back at the house working on his dog’s corner, sorry, mancave, with the space permission from the lord and master.”
Xsplat, Mark Minter, and many others posted great comments that you have to read over there in context. Go read the article. When you’re done with that, check out this banging post by Yohami;
”When people feel entitled to something they dont generally feel like they have to earn it, and they generally dont go about trying to get it by tripping over themselves as being of service, or going to the edge of the world to impress someone, prove themselves to them, or even being noticed.
When you feel entitled to something you dont jump through hoops.
You expect those things to be handed to you for a little to no effort. Just for wanting them.”
There is so much right in that article my laptop exploded. I watch “nice” guys get LJBF’ed every day. Some in the covert “can you hold my books for me?” and some in the straight up overt “let’s just be friends” card after he drunkenly proclaims how he has loved and cherished her from a distance for the last few years. *shudder* It’s the raw end of the deal any way you cut it, but I never really sat down and thought of the real reason women despise them. Yohami breaks it down clearly in a few short paragraphs. Definitely worth the read, go for the article, stay for the comments.
