My New Guy Had To “Ladiefy” His Apartment
I thought I’d give dudes a hand at how to make your disaster zone inhabitable for the fairer sex
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Your support really means the world, as writing is my full-time career. I’m trying to make the switch from writing what clients pay me to (what can I say—I’m a word whore) to writing my funny shiznit. One day, I’d love to just spread as much laughter and joy into the world as possible.
For anyone who has the ability but hasn’t become a paid supportive subscriber yet, I have options at the end of this post that start at just $10 for the whole year. If I can get 20 more I’ll get my ultra official checkmark—which is my best big goal. :)
Anyhoo, here’s my next silly story…
I recently started dating a new guy. He’s an adorable, sweet, Hulk of a man that I met in the dog park. It’s going well, we’ve gone out to dinners, movies, mini golf, and are going to see a concert for New Year's Eve. We’ve kissed and cuddled and done cute rom-com things that will make your heart puke.
The dating phase is adorable, isn’t it?
There’s one thing we haven’t done yet though — go to his place.
And it’s not for a lack of me hinting at it either. I’m blunt and have mentioned it numerous times. Initially, he could get away with suggesting cute date nights out, but you can only avert a question so many times before a woman hones in like a dang Navy Seal sniper.
Going to his place is firmly in my sights.
You learn a lot about someone by their home. You find out how clean and tidy they are, and if they stock the necessary items — or are doom prepping for the apocalypse. You can find your ‘red flag’ items, like if they hang the toilet paper roll with the flap facing forward — or if they’re an utter savage who unrolls it to the back giving it a TP mullet. Ugh, shudder.
When you visit someone’s home, it’s their invitation into their unique and weird little world.
I need that. I need to know things. Like if the only thing in his fridge is an empty jar of pickle juice. Or if he uses his toilet paper mullets for coffee filters. Even worse — if he has a framed and candle-lit picture of Ryan Reynolds. Everyone knows Reynolds is mine, and we can’t both have shrines to him. That would be weird.
I need to know if he’s into taxidermy, so I can run now. Preferably before I get stuffed and added to his collection with a little label that says ‘Roadkill Robin — circa 2025’.
Anyhoo, back to Colossus, err — I mean Mike.
I asked him point blank (in my sniper scope) when he’d invite me over. Although at this point I think it’s officially me inviting myself over. He said he’s excited to have me over someday, and hopes his dog doesn’t start liking me more than him — but he had a caveat. He needs to, in his words, “Ladiefy my place first”.
That’s sweet, he thinks I’m a lady.
However, exactly how bad is his place that he thinks a woman wouldn’t want to go there in its current state?
My imagination of course immediately ran wild. Feral even. I love men, but ugh — some of their places are rough. Some dudes would sleep in a cardboard box if they could get laid in it. I said that phrase to Mike and he corrected me, “All guys. All guys would live in a cardboard box if they got laid in it.”
Great, now I’m just hoping he doesn’t live in a cardboard box. I need a cozy place to turn into a human burrito.
To say the least, I have an overactive imagination. I started envisioning the mancave apartment from The 40-Year-Old Virgin, with floor-to-ceiling displays of in-the-box action figures. I’m picturing an otherwise empty apartment, with a giant Lazy Boy recliner in front of a 120-inch TV that’s hooked up to PlayBoxes and GameStations.
Will there be an intricate maze or fort made out of old pizza boxes?
If I open his closet, will I see nicely folded clothes, a giant wad of wearables (which is what my drawers look like, to be honest) — or will there be a portal to Narnia? Perhaps Mr. Tumnus will meet me on the other side of the wardrobe and introduce me to my next boyfriend.
I just hope there’s a grownup mattress and not one made out of air. In my experience, those are made out of thin plastic and hope.
I’m hoping he’s not some sort of obsessive collector. An apartment that’s an homage to something like The Wizard of Oz might be worrisome. While having a giant floating head of a wizard would be cool if it came complete with hologram and sound effects — I hope I don’t find any ruby slippers at his place. I’d have questions.
Sigh, I already like him a lot. So as long as I don’t have to answer a troll ‘these riddles three’ to get the bathroom key then I’m cool with whatever.
In reality, he’s probably not a collector — or, gulp, hoarder. It’s probably just a little messy. When most dudes ‘ladiefy’ their apartment they probably just mean tidying up a little and burning a candle to get rid of the dude smell.
What We Ladies Like
In case there’s a dude out there woefully attempting to ladiefy his place, or the guy I’m dating Mike reads this and wants to really stick the ladiefication landing — I’ll offer some tips about what ladies might like. Although this is coming from a ‘lady’ who has in her profile, “possibly a dude”, so take what I say with a grain of salt and a bar of soap.
Just tidy up.
But if you’re looking for real bonus points in the game of ladiefication — be sure to have soap. Preferably in a reasonably full bar. No lady wants to see old soap slivers formed together with grit and hair into a soapy shiv-like instrument.
And have hand soap.
No, you can’t refill it with dish soap.
Have a hand towel in your bathroom. It should be clean, and not stiffer than the errant sock living under your bed.
Ideally, have a bottle of poo-pourri in your bathroom. If you only have matches, we know exactly what you did in there. Plus, if she’s absolutely nutbar factor 7 — she might light something on fire.
Should you be hoping for your lady to spend time there often enough to necessitate a shower, purchase separate shampoo and conditioner. We don’t want to wash ourselves with your 7-in-1 Hoe-B-Gone that multifunctions as shampoo, conditioner, body wash, axle greaser, deodorant, shave foam, and sink unclogger.
If you’re hoping we’ll hop into bed with you, have some soft, clean sheets.
If you’re hoping we’ll leave the bed shortly after doing the humpty no-pants dance, don’t make the sheets too soft, or throw some crumbs in them after.
But should you want us to stick around, have pillows. Multiple ideally, but you’ll definitely need more than one. If you’re dating me, ahem, you’ll want at least four because I’ll build myself a sleeping fort using at least three of them. If you leave out some fishing lure I’ll build you a drawbridge for it.
A (living) house plant is always a nice touch. What type of plant? Any type of plant, we care more that it's alive than the type. It shows us that something can survive in there; or perhaps a canary, to illustrate to us that there’s no dude-emissioned gas leak that could kill us in our sleep.
Oh, and snacks. Women are secretly just gremlins in pretty dresses, and if you don’t feed us we turn feral fast.
Possibly the most important point, after make it tidy — is to make it smell nice in there. Bath & Body Works isn’t an $8.27 billion dollar business for no reason. We ladies are suckers for things smelling like vanilla bean, winter candy apple, and dahlia. We don’t even know what ‘champagne toast’ smells like, but we want to smell like it.
Although a man candle works just as impressively. So fire up a sandalwood, mahogany teakwood, sawdust, ammunition, or whatever manly-named man-dle shiznit that suits your taste. We just want you to cover up the dude smell, so that we don’t sensorily feel like we’re in a locker room.
Or were suddenly stuffed in a gym bag.
Or if you’re Canadian, a hockey bag — which is the foulest smell to ever assault one's nostrils.
Hopefully, he doesn’t enjoy that hockey-bag smell. If he does, let’s hope he likes getting laid more than he is attached to smelling like a thrice-used gym sock.
After reading this I’m fairly confident Mike will ladiefy his place in short order. Then I’ll be well on my merry way to his place, and who knows — possibly Boyfriendville. That would be awesome because I am getting sick of shopping in the men’s section to buy a hoodie that feels like I stole it from the boyfriend I don’t have.
Perhaps I should remove ‘possibly a dude’ from my profile.
Anyhoozy, if you don’t hear from me all of a sudden, please send a search party to:
Mike’s Apartment,
c/o apartment troll,
Narnia, Canada.
Do you want to support me but those $5+ per month subscriptions add up? Fair.
I’d super-duper-be-happy-in-a-stupor for your support at any level that’s comfortable for you…
$1 per month (would picking the lowest option make you cheap? Nope, it helps me reach my goal and you’d be amazing)
$2 per month (equal love here)
$3 per month (ditto)
$4 per month (you rebel)
$5 per month (full price because I’d be dumb not to include it)
Don’t have any money? Don’t worry, me neither, and I still love you.
It can cut both ways! When I met my wife she said she was an educator and artist. Naturally, to me, I asked to see her art. Kinda reverse to a man inviting a woman to his place to see his “etchings”, but it was important to me. I’ve met really nice ladies before, but collections of dolls or elephants are a deal killer, let alone shamrocks.
Needless to say her art blew me away, she’s a fiber artist, a unique art form.
With that out of the way I invited her to my house. I have a bit of OCD so it wasn’t much preparation. Also I had a maid come by every 2 weeks.
Things almost ended before they began, we met at a coffee shop, I pulled out into traffic and she immediately followed me, without looking for oncoming traffic and almost got creamed by an oncoming car.
We successfully made it to my house and her first comment was that I lived like a communist, I do like the minimalist look. Her comment later changed to I lived like a college student. Fearing her loss I enticed her with a promise of use of the bonus room upstairs for a studio space were she to spend time with me. She took the hook, line and sinker and has progressed to 2 bedrooms and the dining room for studios.
We’ve been together 14 years now
I agree that having a place that’s a massive shrine to “The Wizard of Oz” is weird. Everyone KNOWS, as my house demonstrates, that the only movie worthy of that level of obsession is “Alien.” Most other goths I know have at least one coffin-shaped piece of furniture (usually a bookcase) at all times: I want a hypersleep chamber, preferably operational.