The Curse of the Boys' Room: Why Do Grown Men Still Live Like Teenagers?

Yesuh, sorry, I don't really have a bed. Are you OK ?

These are not quite thelastwords you want to hear when you're considering spending the night at a man's house for the first time, but they're definitely up there. By the time they speak, you feel too invested to answer honestly um no! and go straight out the door. Instead, you smile and nod politely, mentally planning your exit strategy, while they explain that the couch is surprisingly comfortable, that it's only a temporary solution, that it actually has more of meaning. not have a bed right now because blah, blah, blah

I was used to this kind of nonsense when I was dating someone in my twenties; the clean, student aesthetic seemed hard to shake, permeating the apartments and roommates of almost every young professional I met over the next decade. But when I hit my thirties and started dating older men, I expected those teenage interior design choices to give way to something a little more. . sophisticated. I wasn't expecting cushions and candles, but maybe a nice mid-century piece of furniture, rather than the omnipresent Ikea BILLY bookcase; a few tastefully framed prints on the wall, rather than a torn poster from a 2000s club night; or simply a laundry system that didn't involve piles of dirty and clean clothes scattered indiscriminately on the floor. I was, for the most part, unfortunately wrong.

I'm not the only one to have noticed this phenomenon. Comedian Rachel Coster has made a name for herself on social media by exposing the reality of grown men's so-called boys' bedrooms that appear to belong to teenagers. Far from the aspirational apartment tours that other content creators upload to make viewers swoon, Costers MTV CribsTikTok-style videos expose the horrific reality of living conditions for grown adults in New York.

I've been going on dates since I was 18 or 28, Coster said. The New York Times. By going to people's homes, without knowing them very well, their room is a very immediate way to get a very clear idea of ​​what I'm working with.

Costers' examples fall at the extreme end of what I like to call the lost boy spectrum. Stated out loud, they sound like deranged titles of Friendsepisodes. There's the one with a suitcase as a bedside table. The one with his own name graffitied on the wall. The one with his old rat's tail proudly displayed in a frame.

In the first installment of Boy Room, which has been viewed over a million times, we meet Blake, 28, from Bushwick. As Coster says: There are 28-year-olds who have full rooms, dogs and children. And Blake just makes sick beats and piles of nasty T-shirts.

In another episode, I met Luke, whose bedroom style seems reassuring to me: the man has no bed, sleeping instead on a futon that he doesn't bother to roll out. (Although Luke is at least 24, instead of 40.)

But while the show's examples may be heightened, they are truly representative of many single people I've seen over the years (the problem seemingly magically disappearing once a man moves in with a woman). There are often two main types of boys' rooms that persist long after one assumes an adult has discovered the jokes of curtains and duvet covers. The first is a teenager's real experience in an elite mess that resembles a tornado that has just struck or the room in question that has been turned upside down by a particularly diligent strain of burglar. Heaps of goods explode from every orifice; five-day-old cups of tea or plates of pizza dough accumulate dust and a rich layer of mold. One day I went out with a man who was drying his cutlery and dishes with his T-shirt on. the same one he wore rather than bothering to use a cloth.

I have a sort of twisted sympathy and affinity for the boys' room.

And then, there is the other side of the same coin: the school of interiors according to Patrick Bateman. These men are the opposite of messy, opting instead for an anonymous cubic room with nothing on the walls, nothing on any surface, no books or trinkets or anything to betray an ounce of personality. They still look like they've moved in, even after five years. There will always be an unpacked box in the corner of the room that you dare not look into, for fear that it will contain a human head and possibly a dead plant, as an apt reminder that mortality is fleeting.

As someone who is not naturally domesticated herself, I try not to be too judgmental. In my youth, I was infamous for having a floor dress rather than a wardrobe. I still sometimes refer to myself, somewhat affectionately, as a raccoon during busy weeks when I let the dishes pile up, or whenever I take a brief glance into the apocalyptic dump that is the guest room. So, I have a sort of twisted sympathy and affinity with the boys' room.

But here it is: it is possible to make an effort. It is possible to tidy up, invest in pillowcases and, yes, consider purchasing a bed if you plan to have an adult female in your home. Otherwise, don't be surprised if we take one look, smile and nod politely, and quickly make up our excuses to leave Neverland, never to return.