The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam celebrates the simple pleasures of
A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread-and Thou
Reddit’s MGTOW contingent has a somewhat different notion of what constitutes the good life. It involves a motorcycle in one’s bedroom.
Last week, one Man Going His Own Way proudly posted the photo above to the MGTOW subreddit, where it received more than 80 upvotes and pretty much universal acclaim.
“People always ask when I would leave this ‘narcissistic immature lifestyle’ behind and just man up and get married already,” he wrote. “Why would I want to wake up to anything other than this in my bedroom???”
Replacing the wine, bread, and poetry of Omar Khayyam’s little scene we have:
- An air mattress
- A motorcycle
- A bigass flat-screen TV
- A Playstation 4
- Two video games
Replacing the tree, a Minecraft poster tacked to the wall.
Replacing “thou?” Whatever … that is on the bed, I guess.
You go, boy.
@BeyondOcean
“Society’s shaming”? Really? The only time I’ve personally heard of men in their twenties being pressured or expected to be married was in very conservative religious families and there it’s “have God approved sex only” not “man up”.
@brooked
““Society’s shaming”? Really? The only time I’ve personally heard of men in their twenties being pressured or expected to be married was in very conservative religious families and there it’s “have God approved sex only” not “man up”.”
Maybe guys aren’t pressured to get married so much, but there definitely is pressure on men to have a steady relationship and conform to society’s standards before they can be considered “successful”. I would find it refreshing if dudebro was simply happy with being single and broke. Honestly, I wish more men could get themselves out of their box, and be happy with themselves for who they are and not what they do (ie. have money, get laid, impress the boys).
However, I’m still I’m laughing at dudebro, not because of what he has, but because of who he is. He seems to be looking for kudos for being so “different” and he bases his life on the hatred if an entire class of people(women), the majority of whom he’s never even met. These insecure behaviors are intrinsicly pathetic, and hilarious. I’m laughing at him for who he is, not what he has.
“I agree with almost everything else you said, but this part was just dumb. Last time I checked, I don’t remember the whole of civilization throwing a fit when they found out a man was single.”
By “society’s shaming” I didn’t quite mean the magnitude implied by “whole of civilization throwing a fit”. Sorry if it came off that way.
I know there are life choices (and also some not-so-much-choices) for which people get shafted much worse. But I only have my perspective to go by (I don’t live in the US), and I know the shaming exists. I can’t say how bad it is relative to all other things. Perhaps not that bad at all, but still.