The Truth About Man Caves (and my 50th Date)
Yesterday I received a rather confounding email from philly2night, the City of Brotherly Love’s official guide to all things nightlife. (I’m not quite cool enough to just know when cool things are happening in Philadelphia so I subscribe to a bunch of Lame Listservs for Lame People instead.)
The subject of this email? Win a man cave!
Since philly2night deals primarily in nightlife of the body shots and pole dancing variety, I was picturing some sort of caveman themed male revue. You know: half a dozen of scantily clad dudes hanging around in a grotto wearing animal skin loincloths and flexing their biceps for a bunch of drunken bachelorettes. A couple of Tarzan-themed drink specials. Glow in the dark cave paintings—you get the picture.
(And I am very sorry for that, by the way.)
In the time it took me to process the words “man cave” I started to wonder where on earth (or rather, in Philadelphia) this man cave might be. Maybe above one of the strip clubs on Columbus Boulevard? Or maybe said cave was actually a touring man cave, like a one-night-only, limited engagement sort of thing? Or maybe the men of the man cave make house calls? Maybe if you “win” the man cave, the man cave comes to you?
(Admittedly, it was a rather slow and boring bus ride home from Germantown and I was checking my email on my phone again.)
I was just about to text one of my girlfriends to see if she’d like to come with me to check out this mysterious wonder of the natural world when I finally remembered that man caves are not, as I had suspected, the domain of the Chippendale dancer.
Man caves are the latest trend in interior design and as such they are the domain of the boyfriend/husband. If you don’t have a boyfriend/husband, you really don’t have any need for a man cave and although I may be stocking up on wedding dresses, I draw the line at entering a contest to win a man cave for a man I don’t have.
Personally, I like my version of the man cave much better and someday I’ll get around to telling the story of the time I accidentally stumbled into a male revue back in college but in the meantime: you’re right.
Or rather, those of you who commented about my “strategic blogging” in regards to my 50th date are right: I did leave a lot out. And not because there was anything wrong with the fellow—he wore dress shoes, he paid for our lunch and allowed me to get the tip, he held the requisite doors open and offered me first choice of the lollipops the waitress delivered with the check (obviously I chose blue raspberry over root beer)—but there was no spark.
This doesn’t mean that I won’t see him again, because I will; as every cave man knows, sparks can develop over time. Nor does this mean that I’ve completely forgotten about The Civilian, because I haven’t; he dates and a lot, I date a lot and occasionally, we even manage to date each other. But there is someone else, and this someone requires a bit of an explanation.
Kat Echevarría Richter 
4 Responses to “The Truth About Man Caves (and my 50th Date)”
I’m not digging the whole man cave fad, and I like your explanation of it much better than what it actually is. I’d rather have a woman cave, why can’t we get a nice little area of our own? Are we supposed to have the kitchen be our ‘cave’? I think not!
who is the someone else?
[…] The Truth About Man Caves (and my 50th Date) (katrichterwrites.wordpress.com) […]
I actually helped my boyfriend decorate his man-cave. He wanted each wall to be a different color so that he could put up car posters to match. Yellow cars on the yellow wall, red on red, blue on blue and green on green. It turned out really well. Plus he has his own racing chair set up with a monitor so he can play grand turismo on one side of the room. On the other side is his computer with four (that’s right FOUR) monitors. My boyfriend is quite the geek.
I have my own cave of sorts..only I call it a library. I really need to organize it too because it’s driving me crazy.