One of my favorite new memes is bachelor frog. I am not quite sure why he is a frog, but he doles out life's wisdom from the perspective of a guy living alone. I will admit to being a little disturbed by how many of his statements I identify with and how many of his tactics I use. The house? Doesn't have to be clean until someone comes over. The dishwasher? It's like a magical dirty dish storage receptacle that turns into a clean dish cabinet after it runs. The washer? Doubles as a hamper. The dryer? Doubles as a dresser, besides which if you leave your clothes in there and run it when you hop in the shower, they will come out warm and mostly wrinkle-free. FOCUS: What is your lifestyle when free of the prying eyes and, let's face it, constant judgment of others? Have any of you changed your living situation (like getting married) and then had to adapt? What was the last bachelor-ism to which you held on?
Jesus, no less than twice a week do I hear that my house is "such a guy's house". We have a tv on the kitchen table and a tv about 10 feet away in the living room and an xbox 360 at each and they are linked. On the kitchen table next to the tv, are piles of unopened mail(junk) and our gun cleaning kits. I don't remember the last time we actually ate a meal at that table. All of our meals are consumed at the coffee table in the living room. Leaning against the wall in the corner of the living room is my shotgun. (unloaded) Our bicycles are in the office adjacent to the living room because there is no room in the garage. Also in that office, is our humidor and my jars of tobacco. Our extensive collection of nerf weapons is also in the office. We also have bathroom signs on the wall so there is no confusion as to where they are in case of emergencies. We have a cabinet in the kitchen next to the sink that contains all of our gladware/tupperware. None of it matches and I can never find the correct lid for anything. We use aluminum foil instead. We also have a little basketball hoop on the wall next to the fridge that glows in the dark. We don't have any decorations on the wall. We have a bookshelf that contains all of the medical books in the house.(my radiology stuff and my other roommates' med school and computational genomics reading) That bookshelf also houses approximately 80 xbox games.(not mine) There is no screen on my bedroom window which is on the second floor because we like to hang pinatas from it during parties.
My brother and I live together in a two bedroom condo. We do the dishes that cannot be done in the dishwasher whenever we run out of clean pots and pans, often only washing the one we need at that exact moment. We only eat at the table if our parents come to visit. Sitting on the couch in front of the tv is a much more suitable place to consume a meal. The kitchen table is the place where my brother and I keep our books, store our clean laundry, and set everything that we don't feel like putting in it's proper place. Our dishes never reach the cabinet. They go from the dishwasher, to being eaten off of, to the counter. If someone is coming over, we throw all the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and worry about them later. In our bathrooms, we have a wide array of reading material. The guys that come over think it's awesome and enjoy it. There has been more than one woman that has been repulsed by it. Look honey, I'm not the only person who likes to shit and read. We have a giant tv that is probably much too big for the room but fuck it. I need that tv to watch sports. I can't count the times I've heard "wow, that's a big tv". We are hockey freaks and have no art hanging in the place, only hockey memorabilia. We have an autographed picture of Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin hanging in the kitchen. Hanging in the living room are two framed autographed hockey jerseys. I dread the day that I get married and the hockey jerseys are banished to some room hidden from view. The bathroom reading material is simply non-negotiable.
I fucking HATE having a messy common area if I live with roommates. I end up being the guy who does all the dishes and takes out the trash to keep the place respectable because it makes me less angry to clean up someone else's mess than to think about who's mess it is and wondering why they won't just clean it. On the other hand, when I live alone I am most assuredly worse than any of the roommates I criticize. For some reason when I know it's my own mess and not someone else's I'm ok with it being there. Thankfully I live with the GF who is a neat freak and keeps me in check, but when she goes away that place turns into a disaster zone in minutes.
I had a pretty good bachelor pad before I started living with my current girlfriend. It was mostly free of the appalling mess that most people seem to equate to "bachelor pad." Living in filth is not a bachelor pad. I don't really understand why not having a girl living in the house means food should rot on tables. We had a good sized living room that was a cornucopia of electronics, including two computers, a laptop, a Playstation 2, a Game Cube, an Xbox, and a Dreamcast, with all consoles having many controllers for multiplayer sessions. The furniture consisted of two sofas that were old but comfortable, and had covers sewn for them out of navy blue bedsheets by one of the more industrious girls passing through. A giant beanbag and two desk chairs finished out the seating, and a pretty large coffee table that always had food, alcohol or, uh, smoking accessories on it. Since we had a great porch with a sweet grill, there was never anything in the 'fridge except alcohol, mixers, grillable meats and the components necessary to make those meats delicious. Since living with my girlfriend, I now confine my junk to the man room, which I'm okay with, and she outfitted the room with nice comfortable furniture a few years ago. I have lots of electronics, beer brewing gear and signed sports memorabilia and I don't get grief about it as long as it isn't all over the house. Fair compromise if you ask me - I get undisturbed/unshared dominion of the only extra room in the house if I don't spread everything everywhere else.
I went from living with 2 shitty roommates to living with my wife. The biggest adjustment was me actually having to do LESS housework because I wasn't constantly cleaning up after 2 slobs. It was fantastic. Besides that, I started eating better. I stopped lazily ordering a pizza or Chinese 2 or 3 times a week and started cooking actual meals or having the meals cooked for me. I ended up dropping about 40 pounds because of that. Also... I suppose I jerk off less now.
I bought my house over a year ago, and live alone. My mom came out and lived with me for three months (she picked a good winter to do it, too), and kept the place tidy while she was here. Now, my living room looks like this: I should probably sweep up the cat food. The cat doesn't seem to mind, though. And yes, my CRT monitor is serving me well.
Be honest, did you move that box of tissues from the computer desk to the table next to the couch for purposes of this picture?
Wait...you are a single guy who lives alone and has a cat? I am not even busting balls here, I honestly can't think of a single male I have known who owned a cat. Is this some massive subsection of society I have somehow avoided?
What is that giant, box shaped thing sitting on your desk behind your keyboard where your LCD monitor should be?
I pee in the shower. My roommate this year found that disgusting and bachelor-esque, despite regularly peeing in the sink. Reason #8254 why that guy was a doucher. I'm also guilty of using my hamper as a dresser and my dresser as a hamper. I also have never learned how to pack. My suitcases always end up as piles of clothes.
I had a roommate for one summer (sublettor) who owned a cat, but he was Russian, so he probably doesn't really count.
I'm also single, live alone, and have a cat. Cats are simple and low maintenance, which works fine for me. I'd like to have a dog but I've never owned a dog before and seem to require a lot more in terms of proper care. Ideally I'd like to find someone who has a dog so I can get all of the benefits dog ownership brings with little to none of the responsbilities.
Nope, I don't jerk off in the living room. Much. Werd. See above. Nah, I just lay back on the couch. Now that I have a decent router and can access my computer's HDD via my XBox, I can even watch my downloaded Doctor Who episodes on the 47" screen. Cat ownership, downloaded Doctor Who, a box of kleenex that isn't used for jacking off but I knew it would look that way... Clearly, I'm a bachelor getting more pussy than I know what to do with.
That paragraph described me to a T when I was in college. In the same vein, I made the lamest mushroom-related life revelation ever. Once, when a roommate and I ate mushrooms, the apartment happened to be a total mess of old papers, mail, and other crap that 4 guys amass and leave in corners. We were really depressed coming down, and what bugged me the most was the general disarray of the apartment. The roommate I tripped with left to be consoled by his girlfriend, and while no one else was in the apartment, I threw away nearly everything that wasn't furniture in the dumpster out back. No one ever mentioned a damn thing. Most people suck at getting rid of old bullshit, but I'm bad ass about it now. Oh, and on focus, I pee in the shower pretty much every morning. Socks are also never dirty. They are either conveniently near wherever I am putting shoes on or they aren't, and that's all there is to it.
The rental market in Perth blows goats, and one of my housemates lives on a PhD scholarship, so for a year we lived in shithole. We had a stroke of luck last October, and now, we live in the Bachelor pad of my dreams: Table tennis table in one living room? Check. 52inch laughably old school rear projection tv in other living room? Check. All glasses consisting of pint or wine glasses? Check. 6 computers, 3 tv's, and 2 routers for 3 people? Check. Groceries in the fridge? Hahahaha. Back patio turned into a dedicated beer pong, bbq, and poker set up? Check. My other housemate, who earns about $90k a year, still sleeps on a padded sleeping bag on the floor. We have lived in the house for 8 months. I don't foresee this changing any time soon. 8 person heated outdoor spa, large pool, check. And, in a glorious stroke of luck, my room is completely mirrored on 2 sides, and the ensuite has a double shower - i.e, 2 shower heads with 2 separate controls in the 1 shower. Bless you random 40 year old divorced women that installed these. In terms of lifestyle, the relentless gambling/alcoholism/drug abuse/computer nerdery we engage in are probably the most stereotypically bachelor things we do. And damn if I don't love all of them.