Life in 3D: True Intimacy

There is a point in every relationship where a girl knows she is really in love.  It is not always at first sight, first kiss, even first time you two have sex.  It is not even the first time you say “I love you.”  For me, the first I know that I really love a guy is the first time I clean his apartment.

First off, I am NO clean freak.  I have some serious organizational issues.  The first of which are my clothes and shoes are in a constant state of chaos.  Even when I do laundry and everything is put up, it can take just one indecisive session of “I have nothing to wear” where I pull out everything in my closet, throw it on the bed until I find just the right outfit that expresses my true inner self at the moment.  Being that I, like most women, our “true selves” can shift and get out of joint like a pair of panties with the a shot elastic band is why we have and NEED more than thirty pairs of shoes.  That being said, unless I am in severe state of depression, my dishes are usually done and my bathroom clean.  I might be cluttery, but I am clean. 

So, I have a new boyfriend.  Totally sweet guy.  Although I resisted at first, his nerdy charms and overt attempts to woo me, I am wooed.  He really is cute and super smart.  He treats me like a queen even though he lives in squalor.  Okay, it is not really squalor.   He lives in a very nice apartment in a much better part of town than I live in and he has very nice furnishings, appliances and nice clothes.  You just can’t see the furnishings and appliances for all the crap strewn everywhere.  He has a twelve-year-old son so basically you have the mess of your average straight male times 1.5. 

The first thing I cleaned was the kitchen.  It was gross.  Now, I have seen worse.  There wasn’t anything growing anywhere, just that I refused to use the microwave for fear that the use of the radon beams would somehow animate the months of caked on crud and become the latest Marvel villain illustrating society’s over-reliance on technology.  Either that or a 50’s B-grade Horror Movie: “The Barbecue Left Behind.”

I have been kind of sick the last few days and have been basically hanging out at his apartment drinking lots of cranberry juice and watching cable.  The dog has been over here too at my side.  I believe in the healing power of puppy.  But today, I am feeling better and just had to do something.  I decided if I am going to spend more and more time over here: sleeping, eating, writing, working, showering, etc., that I could not live with the caked on food on the stove, the stacked up Coke Zero bottles in the living room, and the little flecks of red beard stubble in the sink.  I love this man, his child, and myself and it was time to make a commitment.  If I was going to stay with him and visit his place as often as I have been I had to take a stand for “us” and against germs.

I guess the ritual cleaning of the apartment (in his absence) sends a message that the woman is “nesting.”  She wants to make the apartment/house/hut/cave more inhabitable to herself and any offspring the relationship might create.  Call it nature, evolution, call it love, there is just something that says “I want to stay with you” like Lysol.