Things To Hide Before Your New SO Sees Your Room

By Jon_Skindzier

January 19, 2012

Nothing else combines "fun" and "harrowing" quite like having a new SO. Granted, a new relationship is awesome, but so are donuts and puppies, and they don't cease to exist if it turns out that your room is full of My Little Ponies. The same cannot be said of relationships.

When you've got an SO coming over, it's time to take a fearless inventory of your life, and put away any of the stuff that belonged to a younger you, or a messier you. Get the toys out of your room; take down the posters from when you were eleven; clean your beloved garbage pile. Here are some further suggestions.

1.) "Unmentionables"
In a gentler time, when everyone was English and wore top hats to work, "unmentionables" meant anything that you would wear beneath your somber tuxedo or lethally constrictive bodice. All we mean here is any of the generally embarrassing clothes that you might have strewn about—dirty laundry on the floor, socks draped over a bedpost, underpants that are anywhere in your house whatsoever. Bonus points (the bad kind) if an opposite-gender sibling has left clothing somewhere around your room, because trying to salvage a budding romance with the phrase "No no that's just my sister's bra!" will be the low point of your life.

2.) Awful Photos
If there are two truths that apply to all of humanity, they are these: you will do something insanely stupid (like turning to talk to your friends while trying to eat a taco and instead jamming the taco in your ear and winding up in the hospital), and your friends will take a picture of you at the apex of your stupidity. Some people are confident enough to display these and other embarrassing pictures in plain view, but does your SO really need to see visual evidence that you were once a screeching baby, or a gawky pre-teen, or that you once tripped into an aquarium at Sea World carrying a giant anvil, and a whale died?

3.) Garbage/Clutter
At the risk of stating the obvious, there should probably not be a moldy sandwich on the floor or a long-retired waffle hanging off your monitor when your SO shows up. But beyond the simple suggestion that you should avoid living in garbage, there's a second point here: having a lot of things around is a possible sign that you're disorganized elsewhere in life, which is also a possible sign that you will be untrustworthy in relationships, which is a definite sign that you will die alone in a pile of pizza boxes and chaos.

4.) Evidence of Previous SOs
Obviously, if your room contains a picture of you going NOM NOM SMOOCH and obliterating a former SO's face with your mouth, then you need to lock that thing in a safe deep below the Earth's crust. But you never know what object, however trivial, could prompt an uncomfortable conversation. If you've kept a cute teddy bear some past SO bought you, what answer would you give when asked where it's from? "Oh! This, you see.... is...." you'll begin, wondering whether this is worth lying about or not. "...a thing I found in the woods!" you may conclude, inventing a vast web of lies that grows more and more complicated until your story has a Bigfoot in it. Alternatively, you may tell the truth, and what your SO will hear is "This is an adorable object that represents my former SO and I hug it and it sleeps in my bed." Neither option is advisable.

5.) Embarrassing Hobbies
We pass no judgments here. We're all hopeless nerds. If you're a Potterhead, or a Ring... uh... face, or if you have a crush on Inspector Gadget, then good for you. But the most important thing to remember here is that even people who share your interests might run away shrieking from how much you're into those interests. If this makes no sense to you—but we both love this hobby, it should be awesome that I love it this much!—then just think back to the last time you saw someone take something way too far, totally oblivious to being over the line.