The Bachelor Life

Let’s rewind the clocks back to 2012. I’m balls deep in the bachelor life, living alone in a bachelor pad downtown with college chicks everywhere. I’m alternating between peaks of elation and low points of alcohol-soaked nihilism. Overall my life is great, but its still fraught with mundane moments and the typical drudgery of modern life.

This period of my life was probably the most simple my adult life had ever been. I had a job that paid enough to cover my modest expenses. I spent my discretionary income on jaeger bombs, video games and absurdly easy guns like the AR-15. Bachelor life is awesome.

An image of my fridge pops up in my memory. More beer than food. Thank god for takeout. Thank god for the amenities of city life otherwise I’d be forced to survive on beer and frozen food. I wake up hungover one day, and impulsively buy a rice cooker that doubles as a small slow cooker. This is a game changer. This fine piece of American consumerism was designed for the modern bachelor. I love my life.

Though it does come with it’s fair share of boring moments where you’re left questioning the meaning of your life. I recall desperately searching online for cool guys who never married. Oddly enough the coolest guys seemed to get married multiple times. Hugh Hefner would marry 3 times despite being the pinnacle of bachelorhood. Steve McQueen also married 3 times. I never understood why anyone would continually torture themselves. Once seems like enough, but what do I know? Charles Bukowski married twice, but the second one took….

I often wonder if I can be happy living alone for the rest of my life. This seems increasingly unlikely as I casually drift from relationship to relationship. I’m not a player. Though that word gets cast at me with an alarming frequency. I want to be in love, whatever that means. I pour a glass of Bulliet whiskey on the rocks. I pull out a Turkish Royal and open the door to my balcony. I survey the city. My sandbox of decadence. It feels artificial. But its home.

This life may have been a bit decadent between the drinking and the womanizing, but it felt right for the time and the place. I miss those days, back when people still had a sense of humor. You made these inappropriate jokes that would get you canceled today. Back then it got you a cute smile and a pat on the arm by that cute brunette at the bar.

People are often quick to give advice to the bachelor. They assume that you want what they want. You should go to church and meet a nice girl. Too much mileage, I think. Church is where girls go when they run out of guys on Earth that love them. Nah, think I’ll drink til I think 3 AM Taco Bell is a good idea

Somewhere here in between the city walls of dyin’ dreams

I think of death, it must be killin’ me