Judging Dates by Their Apartments

Where to begin with this creepy and utterly useless piece in today’s New York Times about people who are rejected because they have strange apartments? Could it be the comedy “REJECTED” stamps photoshopped onto images of pathetic (but rich!) schlubs who occasionally don’t get laid because they have Lego in their apartments? (I’ll admit it, as a Lego nerd, that one stung a bit.) Or how about the quotes from self-centered Manhattanites who are judging potential mates by the quality of their sheets?

“I was dating this very nice woman, I thought,” says Mr. Podell. “I was ready and she was ready to do the big deed. I take her to my apartment, go into the bedroom, and fling back the sheets, and she said, ‘My husband had these sheets and he was a mean-hearted son of a bitch and you must be like him and I’m leaving.’”

“You see it more in younger girls, like between 21 and 25,” Mr. Bunin says. “Pink, purple, teddy bears, unicorns, all over the bed. I’d just whack ’em off with my arm.”

While his boyfriend was posted in Swaziland, Mr. Lobel sold his 1,200-square-foot Chelsea apartment and bought a 2,500-square-foot loft, with a fireplace and stone bathrooms. … Then his boyfriend returned. “He said, ‘What is this? I can’t live in a place like this, I was just around people who were hungry and dying,’” Mr. Lobel says.

I’m all for a clean apartment bereft of tacky posters and goofy toys, but Jesus. There are about a million things more important about a person than whether or not they’ve decorated their apartment to your liking.

It’s Not You, It’s Your Apartment [NYTimes.com]