Karen is a nice sweet buddy of mine. Bit brash, bit loud mouthed, but those are the flaws that make her all the more endearing to me. From an upper middle income family, she has visited Europe several times whereas I've never been. Also from an upper middle income family, she was afforded the opportunity to go party in her 20's and even to this day goes to the Boom-Chicka-Boom bars that I usually eschew.
However, though very different, we get along swimmingly because she works hard, she is self-supporting and she hates communism. Also in talking with with her I get a glimpse into a world I have never been in, and she gets a glimpse into a world she's never been in. But one of the more interesting observations, if not, addictions she has is "Spanish Men" or "Italian Men."
Not too long ago she went to Spain and hung out for a week. She absolutely loved it, particularly the laid back attitude and culture of the Spaniards. She said,
"Oh, Captain, you would just not fit in there. Everything is relaxed and laid back. You're supposed to take siestas during the day and have some wine. And they're always critical of American's attitudes. "Oh, you Americans. You are so tight and anxious. You work too hard. You need to relax and learn to enjoy life." They go out dancing every night and party and then wake up at 10AM and go to work. They know how to live."
Interestingly enough, it is the same with the Italians (or so I'm told by the ladies who have been there). The Italians are laid back, they know how to enjoy life. They drink their vino and drive their Vespas, they love life, blah blah blah.
Of course Karen and the varied female friends of mine are also fans of the Spanish and Italian men. Accents, olive skin, charming, they know how to have a good time. Oh yes, the Ladies of America love the Men of the Mediterranean. But there was a another funny observation she had. When I asked her,
"Well, how do they afford all this vino and dancing? How can they afford a lifestyle of just lying around and getting to work at 10AM if rents are so high in Madrid?"
She said,
"Well, all these Spanish guys all live at home with their parents. A lot of them work for their moms or fathers as well. They absolutely love their families, it's wonderful."
And that's when the epiphany hit me, as it should be hitting you right now.
It is well known and documented that the charming Men of the Mediterranean live at home in higher numbers. So much so it affects the birth rates of come countries because you can't be making babies when mom is sleeping upstairs. However, this is NOT a criticism of those men, as I do not believe it is because these men lack ambition, drive or work ethic. It is the direct consequence of having a government so large and invasive that it crowds out the private sector. This not only makes finding a job difficult, but also provides great financial incentive to not work as hard or leave home. Free health care, free education, free food, free this, free that. Why go to school, become a doctor, and buy a house when you can live at home and enjoy 4 siestas a day during a 4 hour work week?
But what is truly great, what is truly juicy is the utter hypocrisy the young women of America display. Not consciously of course, because I don't think they connect the dots. Additionally, I don't think they're contemplating the socio-economic reasons why tall, dark, handsome and charming Rafael lives at home with mom as they salsa dance with him in Barcelona tipsy on vino. But there is a hypocrisy. Anybody see it yet?
Well, let me connect the dots.
"Fernando" 30 year old accented hot Italian/Spanish guy with olive colored skin, is a great cook, rides a Vespa, drinks vino, knows how to dance and "live life" and loves his mother. Oh Fernando, take me away!
"Jon Jones" 27 year old stupid lazy American who doesn't have a job, can't find one, doesn't have a degree, plays video games all day, drinks beer, watches sports AND STILL LIVES WITH HIS MOTHER! Jon Jones, you need to man up you slacker!!!
What the ladies fail to see is that Fernando and Jon are the exact same guys, just an ocean apart. Oh sure Fernando has an accent, olive skin and speaks Italian, but they both "live life" (Jon plays video games, Fernando seduces naive female tourists), they both drink (Jon prefers Budweiser, Fernando red wine), they both live at home (though we interpret this as and applaud Fernando for "loving his mother"), and I guaran-freaking-tee you they BOTH play video games. Probably MW3 online, they're probably doing a co-op mission right now.
Laugh as we might, there are several economic lessons or observations to be gleaned.
One, is how Italy and Spain are down the road further than the US when it comes to the state replacing men. Men are no longer the primary bread winner of the family. That is the state. Men are no longer the kernel of the household. That is the state. So with the state replacing the primary roles men used to play in Italy and Spain, AND with the financial largess they provide to people, is it any wonder these guys "live life" and bang on their drums all day?
Two, is it any surprise Italy and Spain are part of the PIIGS suffering from imminent financial collapse? Yes, what a wonderful life it must be to drink vino all day, work 20 hours a week, have free health care and be able to retire at 57 AND have everything paid for. You don't need to be a PhD in economics to understand why they have such HUGE debts - because the countries come nowhere NEAR producing what is necessary to pay for all the crap they've promised themselves under the Tuscan sun.
Three, how women (in a very admitted and general brush) generally are unable to see how voting for socialism drives men to the couch, video games, beer and their parents' basement. If you keep voting for socialism you do two things to make men perpetual Peter Pan's who will never grow up. One, you will essentially pay them with a bevy of government benefits so they don't HAVE TO WORK. Two, even if they wanted to work, THERE ARE NO JOBS BECAUSE YOU'VE DRIVEN AWAY THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND INVESTORS WHO WOULD NORMALLY LIKE TO INVEST, BUT NOT IF 50% OF THEIR PROFITS ARE GOING TO BE CONFISCATED!
Four, boys, this is an important one. If you want to impress girls here but live at home, all you have to do is keep doing what you're doing now, but fake an accent, take some tanning pills and instead of saying, "I live at home with mother because I can't afford rent," say, "I live at home with mother because I love her and want to take care of her." Then POOF! You've magically gone from a "Grade A American Loser" to an "Exotic Foreigner Who Loves His Mother."
Great article.
ReplyDeleteThink England. Just replace the olive skin with an island bound, pasty faced, unemployed, political neutered, tiara worshiping, couch potatoE.....Bob's yur uncle!
Haha great post Captain!
ReplyDeleteWell perhaps China or Russia might afford Men a safe haven for at least 20 years or so. Providing you want to even live there.
- Jay
Great post, Cap'n!
ReplyDeleteSpot on Cap. My cousin married an Italian guy, a lawyer, no less. His mother referred to the new addition as "the bitch", and when my cousin objected, she got the **** beat out of her.
ReplyDeleteThey got the marriage annulled eventually, after two daughters had been born. The daughters had a difficult upbringing, and are now living by shall we say dubious means in order to supply their various habits.
Not the proud side of our family.
Outstanding post. Very illuminating. Right there in front of our noses and didn't even see it.
ReplyDeleteReally clarifies socialisms push for kids being on their parents Obamacare til what ? 26
low amount of nuclear families.
and the bribes of socialism.
FANTASTIC POST Cappy! One of your best.
ReplyDeleteYep the birthrate of native born europeans pretty will is direct function of the degree of socialism, the more socialism the fewer births:
ReplyDeleteDESPITE huge incentives like generous maternity+paternity leave, tax breaks, $ incentives, etc...
That being said, I speak several non-english european languages pretty well natively and yet it has no effect on Women than I can tell. It's probably just me, the rest of the attitude is wrong.
What do you get when you add the U.S. and Japan to the list of PIIGs?
ReplyDeleteJIG IS UP
Cappy,
ReplyDeleteGreat Post. You did leave out the cultural part of it: in European culture, especially sunny Southern Europe, it's been the culture for centuries for unmarried men (and women) to remain at home with their parents until marriage.
A single male getting an apartment is seen as wasteful. Land, and apartments are expensive.
Of course, socialism compounded these trends, magnified them, and now we have crashing birth rates in southern Europe. Which is probably all for the best, since some of those countries don't produce enough food for themselves and need imports from America and Africa to feed themselves.
Anyway, yeah, it works. You can indeed live at home or surf couches if you're Euro-looking, confident, and congruent. FTW, baby.
Spot on Captain.
ReplyDeleteI've seen these American girls, in gaggles, in Spain, without men. They bring two things that many young men want, c**t and money. They are a disgrace to their menfolk and to their country.
ReplyDeleteAsa for Spaniards, they do like to talk but I would think that the average Spaniard works twice as hard as the average American. There is, in fact, a grim, dour side to the Spanish personality. It is no surprise to learn that they put over 700 years into expelling the Muslims, achieving victory in 1492 at Granada. The queen's tiara at that time was silver foil or perhaps tinfoil, because she had spent everything she had on war; Ferdinand's sword was serviceable but the scabbard was held together by the 15thC equivalent of duct tape.
And then there is the Civil War.
Bah! Keep your little girl friend at home.
Italian men are tall, dark and handsome? Hahaha, maybe 5% fit that description, the rest are short compared to most Westerners, pale from sitting inside playing video games and no more handsome than anyone else.
ReplyDeleteItalian men, at least in their 20s can only hope for seasonal work, farm work in the South, ski season in the North. Socialism has completely taken over, now everyone is equally poor.
I've met a number of Italians here in Australia, the lucky few to escape. Most are lazy. It's not their fault, they've spent 30 years having no choice but to be lazy and it's become such a conditioned habit. On the other hand, some on a temp visa do nothing BUT work. They do all kinds of shit jobs for 60-80 hours a week and save every cent to take back to Italy. It may be their only opportunity in life to earn decent money. Two years of solid work here in Australia and they can afford a decent rural villa in Italy and perhaps start a business.
Go East Young Men.
But Anon,
ReplyDeleteThe American girls here just find you Spanish men so attractive and sensitive and strong! Certainly Roberto and Herman would not spurn the advances of giggly, ditzy 20 something suburbanite American princesses? No?
;P
Cpt.
I am a Spaniard, I live in Canada, I work in mining. I could not stand living with my parents, left at eighteen (my Castillian father kept encouraging me to leave).
ReplyDeleteSome of us still remember the ancestors being moor-slayers and explorers. You don't know what those guys pulled until you see the Chilean Andes and the Atacama desert, then realise that they had to cross the Atlantic in a bathtub, then the Venezuelan jungle, just to reach the Andes. And let me tell you, the Atacama desert beats Death Valley (I have been to both).
My grandparents lived through the Civil War. Most Spaniards left after the Civil War were tough as nails. Shame that the Socialists' kids are soft (and many Spanish women are frigid, to put it mildly). I married a Saxon.
Conclusion: there are a whole bunch of effeminate men out there, but there are some true Spaniard men left.
Your homework: figure out which region of the world took the Romans several centuries to conquer, beat back the Moors pretty much single-handedly, built the first global empire (I salute the Portuguese brethren, they may have been first), was the first country to beat Napoleon... and successfully resisted a soft coup d'etat orchestrated by the KGB (why do you think there was a Civil War?).
Because the US is/ used to be/ the breadbasket of the world. . . this is why Italian jerkoffs can affect an underwritten lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteThe now-scorned Greatest Generation actually, y'know, generated wealth for an entire planet and made it easy for Socialists to thrive on benevolent funds and the economic engine set in motion after WWII.
The old farts you now eschew grew crops like never before, went to the moon, manufactured cars and shaped the entire world. Man up, Italy and Spain, [and men who would emulate them] and show us how you'll underwrite the next generation's food bill.
Socialism is fully underwritten by the U.S. economic engine. And almost noting else. Good luck with all that. Egypt and Syria import over half their food. The Arab Spring is about the price of wheat.
The world will ever revolve around producers, and the women who love them.
Consumers are slaves.
I'm pretty sure I'm a bit deep in the cups. Good night.
Re comment: no Spaniards here, just a third party observer. Re "Certainly Roberto and Herman would not spurn the advances of giggly, ditzy 20 something suburbanite American princesses?" Of course not. They would do their masculine duties. All the better when it comes with free money.
ReplyDeleteAhahaha!One of the worst post about Italy i ever seen!
ReplyDelete"Yes, what a wonderful life it must be to drink vino all day, work 20 hours a week, have free health care and be able to retire at 57 AND have everything paid for"????Are you kiddin' me?!I'm italian and the work average per week is about 40-50 hours at week,1 hour lunch time(4 siestas?!?).
We are the most taxed country(fiscal pressure around 55%!) in Europe,we retire around 65-70 years and we have to pay even taxes for selling a bike to a friend!
Lol,working system of northern parts of Italy like Lombardy and Veneto are compared to the ones of Japan and Germany,being one of the most industraliazed place of the world!
We just have a big debt thanks to corrupted politicians and thanks to banks(oh banks!So strange that it's the fault of something that WE invented,like the sovreign debt,that is an italian invention too...).
We live with our family for A LOT MORE IMPORTANT thing,the fact that we spend less being a big number of mebers in a house then being alone,that's the real reason,not because we just like to stay with our moms! XD
You americans just like too much your sterotypes,you can't live without them,so childish...
P.S.And for the fact of the olvie skin,please stop...It's so funny!You come here just in summer when everyone is tanned thinking that is his natural colour! XD
Maybe you are just too ignorant to know that italians are historically being influenced a lot genetically by north people...Visigots,lombards,normansgots,etc...?Does it means anything for you?I just think that you are simly too ignorant,really...Bye from a blond,green.eyed italian!(believe it or not i am)
Now i'm going to eat some pasta,killing some persons for the mafia and playing my mandolino while talking with mario and luigi so you are happy! XD
Iacopo,
ReplyDeleteREad what I wrote carefully. You and I don't disagree one bit.
Also keep in mind, I am writing about how American women view and stereotype Italian men (olive skin, handsome, charming, etc. etc.).
I know better. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy.
Sorry i misunderstood your point of view,I didn't get the sarcasm...Now it's everything more clear...But i think that's the way the "teen" american women see us i think,maybe you know it better,bye! ;)
ReplyDelete