Seriously. I’m 36 now looking around my apartment a little amused at myself for how neat and tidy it is.
Had this been ten years ago (Especially at the closure of a weekend) my apartment would look like a disaster area.
It seems like the older I get the more anal I am about keeping my place clean.
Any other guys out there with me on this?
Thoughts? Opinions?
I’m 28. Only in the last few months have I started tidying because I want it to be tidy.. The place is still a mess most of the time because I don’t care that much but it’s not just to appease the landlord any more.
I’ll be 27 in a couple days, and my attitude is a lot like The Dumbest Guy in the Room’s. I always cleaned before when expecting company, or because my girlfriend told me to. Now I do it just because I prefer living in a clean space.
But it’s still not CLEAN clean. Just tidy. I’m still kind of blind to the dust bunnies in the corner and such.
So you mean there’s hope out there for us women living with messy men? We just have to wait a few more years?
It’s better, and easier to be a bit clean, and organized than not. It takes time to learn that. The effort put into cleaning and organizing a bit pays volumes.
It only takes a few lost bills or statements to teach that life is easier with a bit of order.
But my Father never learned that. So, it may have nothing to do with age.
My parents are divorced
Last summer I rented a 20 yard roll off dumpster to clean my Fathers house.
My Mom vacuumes her garage.
I guess it’s a good thing they split up.
Ehhh. Maybe it does have something to do with age. When I was younger (I’m 46 now) I did not care as much about the state of my house. As you get older and actually have to care about where you live, and what might be your biggest investment, you care a bit more.
It’s nice to come home to a clean house. When my Wife and I go anywhere, we will clean before we leave.
I started keeping clean quarters around the age of 18. Before that everything was as if the dressers and drawers had been given Epicac syrup.
Yes, I’m very much this way. I can’t wait until I’m old enough to be able to afford a maid. 
Well, I’m a woman and I’m a great deal neater now than I was in my early 20’s. It’s not just men – people do grow up, you know.
This coming weekend I’ll be 42, and I’m as big a slob as ever I was.
My wife holds back the tide of entropy.
I’ve noticed this about pretty much all the men I know. If the dirt/mess isn’t directly in their path or covering items they need to use, they will not see it. If there’s dust on the top of the TV, it will annoy me, and I will remove it. But unless the dust is on the screen and obscuring the picture, men seem to say “what dust?”
Is this a universal male thing, or it just the guys I know who have mess-blindness?
Oh, it is not just men. I am a 39 year old female and I don’t care about dust at all. I do care that things are tidy and in their place, but dirt does not bother me a bit. I have a maid service because otherwise nothing would ever be cleaned – tidy-ed/neatened/straightened, yes; cleaned, not by me.
Perhaps an evolutionary leftover ? In ancient times a man in his twenties would be wandering around hunting and so forth, with little time at camp; he would leave his mess behind. By the time he was in his 40s he’d be old, tired, worn and in camp more. He’d get the impulse to clean up his mess because if he didn’t, it would still be there tomorrow.[/speculation mode off]
I wouldn’t say universal (since very little actually is), but it is rather common for men to be that way.
I notice I tend to straighten up the house just because more than I did when I was younger. Though Martha Stewart would still probably have a heart attack if she ever saw the place.
I am 45. I was much neater in my mid- and late-twenties than I am now. (I had more energy and less clutter back then.) So sometimes it goes the other way!
I am 20 years old. When I was 18, my dorm room was a mess, but it was a dorm room, so I didn’t really care.
Now that I am in an apartment, keeping it nice comes in phases. Sometimes my bedroom will be nice for a few months, sometimes you’ll have to get a running start and jump from the door onto the bed.
Yes, then the divorce will come through and there’ll be two tidy houses instead of one messy one. IOW while you clean up after him, he will never ever learn to clean up.