Eff Jeff: How I Turned My Bad Date Into a Clean Room

Have you ever had a date so bad that it literally changed your life? A date so bad that it makes you delete all of your dating apps from the back seat of an Uber on the way home? A date so bad that you turn the guy’s name into a verb and your friends in different cities across the country can reference him by first and last name? I have, sweet readers, and today I’m going to tell you about it.

But I’m not going to tell you all the juicy details because I’m sick of reliving it. Sorry. Here’s what I will tell you; I, Chelsea Gold, went on one of the worst dates of my life last week. The guy was pushy and a bully. He told me my hair was partially a bowl cut and had he been even the slightest bit funny or charming, I probably would have appreciated that observation. He was disrespectful and overly affectionate. He called me a hipster repeatedly and while I do appreciate good music and flannel, that’s some unoriginal bullshit. He changed the time of the date the morning of and when I jokingly asked if it was because he had another date, he openly admitted that he had. And at the end of the night he got incredibly creepy. It was a bad date that left a gross taste in my mouth both metaphorically from the experience and literally because I ate meatballs, drank whiskey, and somehow found myself kissing him despite my better judgment. It was a night of weird decisions in the company of an even weirder human. To put it simply, the date sucked.

I left the date feeling defeated. I’ve now been on dates with 14 different men since my big breakup in 2014 and with the exception of one guy who became my friend and helps me with my finances (more about this another time), everyone has been a garbage human. I actually think I saw one of my former dates eating frosting off of a garbage can in San Francisco but again, that’s a story for another time. I woke up feeling pretty bummed about the whole thing. The next two days I felt like I was on edge. I was jumpy and uncomfortable and felt ready to snap. To be fair the date could have gone a lot worse, I just was upset to be kicking the new year off with such a bad experience. So I decided I needed to do something big.

And that, my friends, is how I got this giant tattoo that says “live, laugh, love” across my lower back.

Just kidding. (Mom – take a deep breath.) I am still tattoo free but now I’m also free of something else: clutter. The bad date happened on a Wednesday and on Saturday I woke up with an itch. Crabs. Just kidding again. I’m STD free, single men that read this blog. Actually I woke up with an itch to make a change in my life. For the first time in a few days I finally felt like I was over the initial shock of the bad date and I was able to parlay all that pent up aggression into something positive for myself.

Now, to love me is to love my clutter. I have never thrown away a greeting card, movie ticket, or CVS receipt with a $1.00 Extra Buck at the bottom. I also have a tendency to be overly sentimental to a fault. I say fault because when I started cleaning I realized I had boxes of junk so unimportant that I had moved them cross-country twice without ever opening them. And yet, there they were taking up about one third of my precious New York closet space. It was time to let go.

So I started to clean. With every trashed receipt, broken piece of jewelry, or long forgotten memento I got a little rush of release. I had been tense for the two days since the date and for the first time I could feel my shoulders starting to relax. Every time I got rid of an old shirt or long forgotten note I could feel my discomfort from Wednesday washing away. Instead of letting myself dwell on the discomfort of my failed date all weekend, I spent close to 13 hours doing something good for myself. It felt fucking fantastic. Also, I made a couple important observations:

1. I have a serious Cadbury Egg addiction. Remember all those CVS receipts? Well a large majority of them were for those cream filled ovals from heaven. Remind me again why I have a weight issue?
2. If you want to make sure you don’t lose something just attach it to a greeting card and mail it to me. I will keep it safe for the rest of my life.
3. Sometimes it’s better to experience a gift instead of saving it. Case in point: a chocolate alligator an art director gave me on a shoot five years ago. Surprisingly it didn’t hold up that well. Yep. I tried it.
4. PENS. Why so many? And why can’t I ever find them when I need them? And did you read it as “penis” first because every time I proofread this I did.
5. I am single handedly keeping the fuzzy sock industry in business. Anyone need 24 pairs of oversized, fluffy socks that make you slip everywhere? Well go buy some because you can’t have mine.
6. There is a benefit to having a “please destroy if I die” box and that is knowing where all of your weird stuff is at all times.
7. There is no benefit in keeping every receipt from a trip you took 10 years ago. Who knew?
8. If there were a market for adorable notebooks with one or two diary entries and 200 blank pages, I would be a wealthy woman.
9. If there were a market for candy wrappers, used tissues, and condom wrappers that would be super gross.
10. When you sublet your apartment for two months there is a very good chance the subletter will leave behind a generous collection of empty PowerAde bottles, half used hot sauce packets, and mysterious curly black hairs that will haunt your dreams.

As cheesy as it may sound, I feel like I went through a bit of a detox. The weight of my disorganization was something I constantly thought about but never found the time to remedy. Plus, for the first time since I moved to New York over 10 months ago I actually feel settled. I know where everything is and I’m not stepping over piles of laundry to get to my overstuffed closet. For the first time I’m aware of the obscene amount of things I’ve acquired and I probably don’t need to buy a new stick of deodorant or razor for a solid 2 years. Seriously, I have a miniature CVS under my bed now (but no Cadbury eggs).

There are a couple lessons in here for sure. First, I really need to stop buying Cadbury eggs and deodorant. Second, Kristen is a saint because as much as I’m enjoying my clean room now, I complained during the entire cleaning process and she motivated me for a solid 13 hours. Third, don’t ever go out with an asshole named Jeff from Westchester who lives in Union Square and brags about his kegerator and three bromates. And finally, if you do wind up on a date with assclown Jeff, spend an entire day doing something good for YOU afterwards. At the end of the day you’ll have a clean room, or massaged back, or a new handbag and he’ll always be a 5’7” douchebag with little man syndrome. Thanks for the motivation, Jeff. You still suck though.