Bachelor pad

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A bachelor pad essentially means a house (pad) in which a bachelor or bachelors (single men) live. It should not be confused with a bachelor apartment, which is a zero bedroom apartment where the main room serves as a bedroom, living room and dining room (and sometimes kitchen).

In the United Kingdom the term bachelor pad usually refers to a flat where a single young man lives alone. Most students in the UK are unable to afford this luxury, and are forced to live with other students, hence the heightened social status attributed to this particular sense of the phrase.

In the United States it generally refers to small houses or apartments where unmarried men, often college students, live until they obtain larger or more luxurious houses or apartments, are married, or generally "move up" in standards of living and taste.

Some bachelor pads are stereotyped as being messy, with old food and dirty dishes and clothing being strewn about the floor, sinks, and other areas in proximity to places where they are useful (examples being dirty clothes piled up near a washer and/or dryer, dirty dishes in a sink, or moldy food in a refrigerator) — often to the disgust of women related to or involved with the men living in "pads." Several men may share a pad and its expenses for financial reasons or friendship, which generally stereotypically results in worsened living conditions compared to one person's tenantship. Pads may also be the sites of wild parties.

A famous bachelor pad is the home of Withnail and his flatmate in the film Withnail and I. The kitchen is in such a dire state that they are forced to slay a creature living in the sink. A less dire pad was depicted in the 1966 film The Pad and How to Use it.

Synonymous with Bachelor Pad is Bro Zone, a colloquialism relating to a house that is populated by alumni of a fraternity where the occupants continue to live a lifestyle associated with fraternity life popularized by such movies as Animal House, National Lampoon's Van Wilder, Revenge of the Nerds, PCU, and Old School. In contrast with other slang terms such as "pimp" and "Baller", which have a more positive connotation bordering on ostentatious, such houses are usually rented and tend to be in poor condition, as recent alumni generally lack the financial capabilities to invest in prime real estate.

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