Fort Bachelortude

As the recessionary woes plague the nation your beloved Captain, now on permanent Galt vacation, has had the time to observe a couple trends or phenomenons occurring. Most notably the young man who now sleeps on my couch on account he is a friend and he is in a time of need because, well, his wife is an insufferable pain in the ass. This has resulted in my abode becoming what I like to call "Fort Bachelortude" - an oasis for bachelors as they battle against life's daily onslaughts.

Go to the neighboring town of mine and you will see two other bachelors forming a brother fort on account one of them is a pilot (whose industry is not known for long term, stable employment) and needs just a place to sleep and a stall to shower in. The owner of the house (a bachelor) does not have a wife nor kinder and therefore has an extra room by which he can rent out for very cheap to the pilot bachelor. This is a mutual advantageous relationship in that the room has gone unused and why not generate at least a pittance of rental income while splitting chores.

Of course these are merely anecdotal stories of bachelors shacking up, but enough anecdotes make a trend, and trends make statistical fact, and so allow me a prediction;

The RISE OF THE BACHELOR FORT!

Both the pilot and my romantically beleaguered friend are empirical evidence of two traits of society that are going to drive this "bachelor fort" trend. A trend by which bachelors minimize their expenses, just try to get by as cheaply as possible, and therefore form MANLY coops (because most coops are pretty effeminate) of residency by which to save money.

For example my friend who now resides on my couch is suffering from one of society's trend whereby the entire courtship/romance/marriage or whatever you want to call it industry is completely biased and tilted against men. Divorce courts, child custody, and forget law. Just look at the purified hell a young man must go through in the US when it comes to dating the American Idol worshipping prima modannas. Inevitably a man comes to the realization that he is finite and he is going to die. Does he spend his time slaving away to make daddy's little princess happy? Or does he decide to find a couch, play some video games, smoke some cigars, drive a motorcycle and do what he wants to do? I could go into this in infinite detail and no doubt I will receive many complaints from women, but it doesn't change the fact that courting and marriage for the average American male is so horrendous that it should not be surprising that the trend of men opting to never marry will not just continue but increase.

This trend of course is great for Fort Bachelortude in that without a wife demanding a brand new 3 story suburbanite dream home and children crying and screaming and bringing communicable diseases into the house, the sole, lonely bachelor only needs a couch and a bathroom for his living needs.

The second trend is what my pilot buddy faces - unreliable employment. Not because he is an unreliable employee. Oh no no no. Scott Adams has long ago proved corporate America is to blame for the lack of loyal employees. But because employers, for the most part, are just as incompetent as the employees they love to blame their incompentence and quarterly losses on. The WWII generation is no longer at the helm. It's the baby boomers at the helm, the even-more-entitlement-mentality-driven Gen X'ers seeping into middle management, and the even-more-entitled-than-that Millinials at the entry level. And you people wonder why there's 10% unemployment and no private sector growth.

Regardless, this poses a quandry for your conventional bachelor. Simply;

THERE'S NO JOBS!

You also combine that with the fact that this latest recession has disproportionately affected men more than women to the point it's called the "mancession" it leaves a populus of bachelors out there looking to minimize expenses as much as possible. This drives American men NOT to go back home and live with mom at the age of 40 (like many of our southern European counterparts do), but rather shack up with other impoverished bachelors to pool resources and share expenses.

Now at first, most people would look at this and say, "My god, what a bad thing. How could this be happening?" But permit me a couple observations.

First, bachelors, if they're real tough, traditional American men, do not have their lives nor base their lives on their homestead. Their lives are defined by what they do OUTSIDE of their place of sleep. Ergo, a single male WHO HAS NO KIDS, does not call home "where he rests his head" but rather "home" is his network of friends, his hobbies and what defines him as a man. And whlie in our ignorant youth some of us may have thought a house in the suburbs with a June Cleaver wife (who was actually pretty hot by the way) was the "goal" as we've aged we've realized there's more to life than just doing what literally billions of people have done before us. And instead of having the majority of our finances tied up paying for a mortgage and family we can't afford, with minimal living expense and a lot of free time (thanks Barack!) we can now actaully pursue interests and hobbies that interest us. This is the key thing to Fort Bachelortude - trading labor for leisure. Since there are no jobs, if we can master the art of cost-minimalization, we can enjoy a higher standard of living at a much lower income in that we have all that much more free time.

Second, Fort Bachelortude is not a frat house. I'm not talking about a bunch of rowdy teenagers, getting drunk, living off of daddy's dime while they major in "business." I'm talking men in their 30's and 40's who can actually shack up without any drama or chaos about who left the puking donkey in the living room. Men who are forced to join Fort Bachelortude are much more mature and make any kind of traditional roomate dramas a thing of the past.

Thirdly, it forces bachelors to rethink what's really important in life. I know women are not going to like this, but men, you are a factor too. And not just any factor, a very important factor. Matter of fact a completely necessary factor in by that default you are 1/2 the factor. Your life and your happiness should come first as long as it does not expense or hurt somebody in the process. I know we've been trained to put family and household ahead of us, but please. That doctrine was established in the 40's and died once conventional feminism took hold. There is a whole world out there for you to explore, and as I mentioned before in point #1, you may be forced through divorce or dumping, combined with economic realities, to not just minimize expenses, but that you will also have a wake up call forced upon you. If you have such minimal resources to pay for your living, what are the most important things for you to spend your money on?

In other words, Fort Bachelortude is not just a means by which you get cheap rent and your landlord buddy gets beer money, it makes you take inventory of your life and ask how do you want to spend it.

Now the ramifications of this trend are very politically incorrect. Men just going and doing what they want? MEN abandoning the courting/dating/marrying market and pursuing hobbies of leisure? Men not walking up the isle and instead just renting a room in the basement of some other heathen bachelor while he plays video games all day???

Sadly (or perhaps maybe happily) yes.

For you see, men don't really have a choice. The economy has been feminized to the point safety is put ahead of any kind of innovation or production. Equality is more important than excellence. And harmony has replaced competition. This is not a welcoming environment to the traditional American male simply because it goes against a male's nature. And when this is the environment a male doesn't go forth and try to produce huge amounts of production or start up a new company or become the next Tony Stark, because...well...why should he? (First, he can't, second, you'd tax him to death) Instead, and this is the real threat to the conventional way American thinks, what if the real men of society, just plain gave up, decided to play video games, decided to minimize expenses, and never work hard again? What if they stopped marrying, working, and instead put their own happiness ahead of everybody else's and simply pursued a life of leisure and hobbies that they wanted? What would be the long term economic consequences if such a large percentage of the labor force just plain gave up or didn't try their best anymore?

I'll let that thought fester in your mind, in the meantime, doors are open at Fort Bachelortude. BYOB.