Unpopular Opinion

4. Is raises the chance of having sex, at least for my wife she definitely gets more in the mood when we go to bed and the bedroom looks clean and nice.

I prefer to air the bed during the day so I pull the covers down to the end and fold over once. Pillows are reset so they're fresh and comfy to start the night. Maybe later in the day I'll pull the covers up but doesn't later since it's all neat anyway.

None of that is performative, it's about freshness and comfort.

My room is really small, and I don't have space for a couch for example, so if I would want to lay down and I'm in outdoor clothes, I would rather kill myself than to lay down in unmade bed while wearing jeans that saw every sort of dirt and dust

Agreed. Same reason I dont clean my dishes, or wipe.

OP has never heard of dogs.

shameful cleaning ritual is a bit of a harsh descriptor, but hard agree with everything you said.

@srasmus Live a lazy life, get lazy rewards.

I had no idea people past my grandmother's generation still felt compelled to make their bed... I thought we had collectively grown past the compulsion to do pointless tasks like this, along with other wastes of time like manually wiping the dishes or ironing everything including the dish cloth. Maybe that's just me, though.

(I'm not talking about doing it if you want to because you like it, only about the expectation that you should be doing it no matter what.)

If you dial the resolution back beyond the bed, you have the whole human experience.

Finding meaning within a finite existence framed against the infinite is not easy but, if you pick up your fucking room a little, maybe it can be done with a bit more class and comfort?

Generally speaking, I agree with you, for many people... yeah there isn't really any real compelling reason to habitually do this.

However, there are fairly common circumstances where this does actually make sense:

Maybe you just have a tad of OCD, and well... this'll make you feel a bit more steady and comfortable, and it doesn't really hurt anyone, assuming you're not full blown OCD doing it over and over and over because its never perfect.

Maybe you are mildy to moderately depressed... and... just being able to have any kind of regular structure, regular task that you can accomplish... maybe that means you're not a completely useless piece of shit, and if you can keep up this good habit, and give yourself a pat on the back each time... maybe that means you can start to step up toward more, or bigger tasks.

Maybe you're a bit ADHD, and its... anchoring, helpful, to have that same just bit of predictable structure or routine, to help you get your day started.

Maybe you have a cPTSD / Trauma response to a messy bed from associating it with very shitty situations in your past, and... having a made bed just removes a trigger for you.

...

Or maybe you have pets, or toddlers, and don't want to 'lose' them, lol, or have their uh, debris of whatever sort, just get everywhere in the bed.

Maybe you live in a studio and eat food on your bed, clip your nails on it, and you adopt a regular 'crumb removal from your bed' routine as basically just a hygeine pattern, like brushing your teeth or hair or what not.

Maybe your heat went out or its just fucking freezing, and having a properly made bed makes it just a bit warmer to get into for sleep.

Maybe you have very fancy, high maintenance bedding, that will wrinkle and deform if not regularly ... re normalized?

(Yeah I dunno, this is apparently a thing, I am apparently either too simple or broke a man to have ever entertained the idea of a high maintenance bed, but apparently people do?)

I don't do it because I'm lazy, and I'm just going to pull it apart again in a few hours.

Only if you get nothing from it.

Those are the only reasons you've ever heard?

I can't speak for others, but my sleep is not clean. I can wake up with half the pillows I started with, and the duvet sometimes spun a 180, so the buttons are up by my head. Ive woken up with my arm inside the duvet cover.
My making the bed resets all that. Gets the pillows off the floor or out from behind the headboard, and it turns the duvet round again so I can just flick one corner open and climb in of an evening.

Also when Ive lived with dogs and cats. It kept their hair from getting between the duvet and bedsheet, coz I really enjoy the idea of pets using my bed when I'm not.

Also it stops sex sweat from being in the sleep zone

I like it to look nice and neat. Mess and disorder puts me on edge. I like the bed made with the pillows fluffed and throw pillows placed in a certain way. And I do feel like it's more comfortable to sleep in a bed that has been made, because the pillows are fluffed and all the sheets are smoothed out and evenly distributed between my husband and me. I do just get in bed and turn over, I don't rearrange anything, and instead of a blanket I have my hubby for knee support :)

Keeps the dust off your bed

But if there was someone I trust enough to be in my bedroom, I’m not going to waste my time convincing you that I do not, in fact, sleep in my bed.

If this is really how you feel, then I suppose I can't dispute you. But this is like saying, "why would I comb my hair? Anyone I want to talk to is okay talking to me as I am."

Sure..... But most people care about things like this. Maybe not explicitly - most people don't explicitly think to themselves "ugh, an unmade bed. What a loser." But on a subconscious emotional level, this is essentially what is happening. As a society, we've decided a made bed looks better than an unmade bed. That you have failed to make your bed prior to someone entering your bedroom indicates a lack of willingness or ability to confirm to social norms. This, then, typically corresponds to individuals with low social status, and lowers others' opinions of you. Again, this happens on an entirely emotional, subconscious level for almost everyone most of the time. But the fact is, it happens.

Hence, when I'm going to have guests in my bedroom, I make my bed. I don't make my bed every day - I just don't care that much. But I will 100% make my bed if I'm expecting someone else to see it, just like I would sweep the floors and comb my hair.

You don't need to remake the bed just for sitting on it, you just need to adjust the bed sheets for five seconds.

Right now, I'm lying down on top of my made bed. There are time where lying down is nice, but Id rather not get under the sheets. Maybe I'm old, but resting is different from sleeping.

But if there was someone I trust enough to be in my bedroom, I'm not going to waste my time convincing you that I do not, in fact, sleep in my bed.

This is just a bad faith argument. No one is trying to convince anyone of that they don't sleep in their bed. A fair amount of grooming is performative as is quite a bit of tidying. I, for one, get a sense of calm when I'm tidying things. I don't believe I'm not going to untidy things and I don't live in stress that things need to be tidied. But I'm mindful of it and attend to it when I have a chance.

When I get up from the bed, I may tug on the corner to remove the me sized indentation, but that's it.

I, for one, don't care if you make your bed or not. But I'd have a tough time sharing a bed with someone who doesn't.

It makes it more comfortable to sleep in.

More comfortable for the cat. She doesn't like it when it's a mess

end every sentence with MOM!

Unpopular maybe, but I agree with you.

I leave my bedroom in the morning and don't really come back until I am ready to go to bed. So the appearance doesn't matter to me.

I prefer my bedding to be how I left it, not all flat and tucked in.

My partner disagrees, so the bed is usually made by them because even if I do it it's not up to standards and I get up and leave for work earlier anyways.

But I get it. The only reason I do it is to be nice to my partner, I could give two shits personally.

If I had an efficiency apartment or something I might do things differently because it's like, cluttered in the whole living space, but otherwise I think it's a waste of time unless you're trying to impress someone.

Because science.

Why Mess Causes Stress

It looks nicer and a nice home that looks cared for is worth it on its own. I find it much easier to relax when things around me are tidy. Not making your bed is no different than leaving everything lying around after you're done using it. If you want to live like that, you do you, no judgement, but I don't.

No matter how shitty my day is, at least the bed is made.

Also, the texture of the sheets on your body feels smoother if the bed was made hours before going to bed, than that feeling of untidy sheets. My sleeping position is sideways, the blanket below me, back is cold, feet over the edge, only one leg covered.

I air my bedsheets outside 3 days after changing them, I change them once a week. Also, my bed is for sleeping and the nasty only.

And from personal experience, partners who didn’t make their bed tended to not have their shit together, so I’m kind of biased.

It makes it more comfortable to sleep in.

I have absolutely no idea where that comes from. Do you all sleep like Dracula? My bedding is usually tussled about within minutes of me laying in bed. Blankets balled up for knee support, one leg sticking out for temperature venting. I couldn’t imagine sliding under the covers and laying perfectly supine like Vladimir Lenin.

You fold your clothes after you clean them? Why, your clothes are just going to get wrinkled anyway.

You eat your food without blending it all up in a blender first? Why, your stomach mixes it all up anyway.

You take a shower? Why, you're just going to get dirty again anyway.

You wash your hands after you shit? Why, you're just going to shit again the next day.

You make slippery slope arguments? Why, you can just frame them as unpopular opinions.

I'm with you here. It does look nicer when it's all "setup" but for its purpose, I agree... makes no sense if I'm going to be under the covers anyway. Society plays stupid games and well... you know the rest.