Filed under: Bedroom, Your Home, Bathroom, Living Room
Love is patient, love is kind, love is ... accepting another person's bad taste in decor? Not always.
For a kid's room, maybe. But would you be able to handle this kind of decor in an adult's room? Photo: MintyMix; Flickr.
Imagine visiting the dorm room of a campus heartthrob only to discover that Mr. I'm-in-a-band had lined his walls with performance shots ... of himself. It happened to one colleague, who fled the scene, embarrassed by the guy's narcissism and "taste" in decor.
She's not the only one who's had to make a quick escape after witnessing particularly bad design -- we rounded up stories of people who've turned down potential romantic partner based on their furniture, cleanliness, unoriginal art -- even down to their stick-on glow-in-the-dark stars.
"People's apartments are so reflective of their personality," says Oberon Sinclair, owner of My Young Auntie, a public relations, branding and events agency. And home decor choices are one of the various cues that could help attract -- or alienate -- a potential romantic partner.
Sinclair says some of her "decorating deal-breakers" include lazy chairs, bad bedding, too many pets, and an affinity for harboring exotic animals. "I was dating this guy who had a snake. When I found out, I was like 'I can't see you anymore'," she recalls.
Sarah Cooper, a marketing manager, is similarly inclined to dismiss dates based on tacky taste. "Prints of overly famous paintings -- a Salvador Dali, for example -- that everyone has seen a zillion times seem unoriginal." She adds, "If I walk into a single guy's apartment, and he has a black leather couch, I will not take him seriously. And any man with leopard-print anything is a no-no."
Even in the best neighborhoods and buildings, it's the decor that speaks loudest -- which can backfire on bachelors who've spent all their money on a great location. Marisa, a former paralegal, recalls visiting the apartment of a co-worker from her corporate law firm for an after-work drink. "He lived in the garden apartment of a townhouse in a really expensive neighborhood of Boston," she says. "His room, however, basically consisted of a dirty mattress on the floor with no sheets, surrounded by paper cups full of dip spit. Rather than purchase a dresser, he had stolen a dozen cardboard document boxes from work in which he stored his clothing. Also, there was a giant bloodstain on the wall, which he said was from a time he fell and hit his head against it and hadn't had time yet to clean it up."
Perhaps scarier than bloodstains? eccentric obsessions. "I once went home with a guy and one wall in his apartment was almost a shrine to Britney Spears," says Patrick, a New Yorker who works in finance. "Posters, framed CDs, some Britney Spears Barbie dolls still in their boxes on a shelf ... I thought that was really, really, really disturbing and creepy."
If dolls are a turnoff, so are other juvenile touches. Rodney, a 30-year-old engineer, headed for the door when he discovered a date's uber-girly polka-dotted pink wall and stick-on stars covering the ceiling.
An informal poll of our Facebook fans turned up decorating deal-breakers such as "dead animals on the wall," "excessive house plants," "sports posters," and a rather impractical architectural plan.
"The boy I dated as a teenager showed up one day with blueprints -- BLUEPRINTS -- he'd made of a two-story trailer that was constructed by placing one trailer in a giant car port and putting another trailer on top, and building a staircase between them," says Heather Sullivan. "I'm not kidding. I don't know what was more troubling -- his lack of vision, or that this was the result of a few weeks' thought."
Tell us, what are your decorating deal-breakers?