Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Dev]

I am a self-confessed clean freak. I wasn't always that way. Right up to my mid 20's, I was quite messy not keeping my room in order. For some reason I changed. I just assumed it was maturity. My mother had always told me that it had given her pain to just look at my room.

It could be maturity, bringing dates home or just the pride of having my own apartment that I started keeping it neat.

While I have changed, I have seen that other people like my cousin who I live with now as well as some of my friends have not. Their places are messy as hell like a hurricane ripped through their apartments.

I don't understand why I can't live with mess, while others are perfectly fine with it. A sink full of dirty dishes will make my blood pressure rise.

What category do you fall into and do you have any theories on this?

[The evil penguin]

Why are some people creative and others completely unimaginative, some noisy and others quiet...

I am naturally messy but try to keep a clean room purely at an attempt to be somewhat disciplined... but it doesn't come easily. At work i have the messiest desk in known history, but i can lay my hand on whatever i need in seconds.

I have an instinctive distrust of anybody with a too clean house (spotless windows, arranged bookshelves) or neatly organised desk.

A few books and magazines laying around the house half read, an occasional coffee cup and disembowled piece of electronic equipment, - whats the problem?

I draw the line at a sink full of dishes, blood splatters on the carpet and walls, and decaying body parts left on the furniture.... now that would be unhygienic....

[Lonewolf]

Some people had mothers to clean up after them and have no idea how to clean. While others are taught to clean from a young age.

[DrOctagon]

I was taught to clean at a young age. When I was young my mother would make my brother and I clean the house every Saturday. We would also take turns washing the dishes every night and taking the garbage out every week.
With that said, I hated cleaning then and I still hate it to this day. For some reason I hate doing dishes the most. My back starts to hurt after standing up in front of the sink for 1 minute.
I guess some people just don't see a reason for everything to be perfectly clean all the time, while some people think that their life will end if there's a small grain of dust on the floor.

[IncognitoHFX]

Some people are absolutely disgusting. I didn't know how bad it was, nor did I understand my mother, until I had room mates. I used to sublet a room to a girl who did nothing but stay inside all day with her cats and eat take out. At the end of the year, her room was a flurry of dirty clothes, garbage, and boxes full of half eaten Chinese/Pizza and so on. Her cats had fleas, which didn't seem to bother her, and when she did use our collective dishes she never, ever, ever cleaned them and expected me to clean them as the lease owner.

I also had a dorm room mate who never unpacked. We lived together for eight months, and if the guy didn't use something, it didn't get unpacked. His clothes were a huge pile that was either placed on his bed, or on the floor (if he was sleeping) and he once told me that he hadn't worn underwear in weeks because A) he didn't know how to wash his clothes and B) he liked the way it felt (I agreed).

At the other end of the spectrum, I had a neurotic room mate who would rewash all my washed dishes and whom threatened me with a knife when I accidentally left a crum of Tofu on the kitchen counter-top (I snuck out the next morning).

I don't get it. I'm clean but I'm not a freak about it. I find that I can think a lot more clearly in an organized environment so I try to keep my apartment clean, but there are times when piles grow large and I just say f*ck it for a few days.

I guess I don't understand people at either side of the spectrum. I think it says a lot about ones personalities too. In my university days, I toured a lot of apartments when I felt social and often found that business-minded, left-brained students were the cleanest and the people who were dirtiest were dirty proportionately to how much pot they smoked / how artsy-fartsy they were trying to be.

There are probably some great studies out there on this phenomenon... I recall one recently regarding the rooms of liberal and conservative voters... Liberals being the messy ones.

[Underwaterbob]

I've been through various phases of cleanliness in the past ten years or so, anywhere from appalling to immaculate. I think it largely depends on my current situation as to whether I'm a neat freak or a pig.

[jajdude]

Either extreme is bad news and signifies mental illness. I don't mind a bit of mess and dirt, and dislike cleaning, but it can be embarrassing when someone sees you living like a slob. It's better to be clean, but not a freak. I come from a messy family except for one (out of six) brothers, who would not let anyone else wash the dishes -- his way, or it was wrong! Some people are obsessed with germs, yet playing in the dirt as a kid is said to be good for the immune system, so I wouldn't want to live with anyone who was a freak about everything being superclean all the time. I'd rather be around the average slob who doesn't go too far. Some of us are just lazy and don't care that much. Whatever the case, it does show some psychology/personality.

[JMO]

genetics + environment + chance.

[yawarakaijin]

I can understand people who like to keep their apartments free of dirty dishes and general garbage laying about the house. What I can't understand are some peoples definitions of "dirty."

I have two very good friends that are admittedly clean freaks while I am a little more casual about my place.

They are always coming over and telling me my place is dirty. I'm like WTF? Tell me why my place is dirty.

Oh you have small change just sitting there on an end table. You have books and videogames on the floor infront of your t.v. Why is your snowboard against the wall? Why isn't it in it's case stashed away in your closet?

I just have to roll my eyes. This is dirty? For this I'm known as the "dirty" one of the three. Quite annoying sometimes. LOL

Last year I stayed with my best friend during the christmas holidays. He got engaged just before I left for Japan and she has been living with him ever since. As a joke the night before I left, I hid a few pennies around his house. One in a game case, a few under the sofa cushion and a few others around the house. With my very last penny I thought I would put in somewhere he would neves suspect. I put one on top of a pizza box in his cooler. Unbelievably as I was leaving for the train and they were leaving for work on my last day, she went into the cooler for a toaster pastry and found the penny.

She fuking flipped on me. Called me disgusting! Disgusting is the actual word LOL. Somehow a small piece of metal on top of a cardboard box was disgusting, said she was glad I was going and didn't ever want my best friend to let me stay with them again! LOL Fuking unreal! LOL

[Rob'sdad]

I was kinda a slob in college but not too bad. My buddy was the worst. He'd show up packing mac and cheese, make it in our kitchen, mack it down, and bail w/out washing the dishes. Then he got all butthurt when I called him on it.

He also scratched his head with the salad bar tongs in the dorms one time.

[Illysook]

I hate to clean. I also hate to get up in the morning. If my place is neat, it doesn't take me as long to accomplish the morning routine. That said, when it comes to big chores like mopping floors, I can only be bothered to do those once they are truly filthy.

[Faunaki]

My mother's a clean freak therefore I am a clean freak. The same cannot be said for my brother or my youngest sister. My middle sister is pretty clean.

I guess it has nothing to do with one's mother then.

[Hanson]

I'm guessing the OP doesn't have kids... - That's my excuse, anyway...