… And at worst, actively making your bedroom less functional and more cumbersome to use. The arguments I hear in favor of it are completely asinine and I will address them one by one.
- 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.
- It doesn’t take much time, so you might as well do it.
I find any task not worth my time to be a waste, so unless it has a purpose, it is actively infuriating to do.
- It looks nice. And an unmade bed looks lazy
Given that this is an entirely subjective reason, I can’t exactly “disagree” with it. 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.
Not to mention that if you want to nap or even sit on the end of the bed, you have to make it again. It is an incredibly unstable artwork, making me avoid using my bed unless I really need to.
If you make your bed, I have no judgment for you. Just like people who fold designs into the ends of their toilet paper. I couldn’t imagine caring about something like that, but it literally doesn’t affect me at all, so go nuts.
But I think we should be honest and call it what it is: some kind of shameful cleaning ritual that is probably some vestigial military chore, and I want nothing to do with it.
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 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.)
OP has never heard of dogs.
shameful cleaning ritual is a bit of a harsh descriptor, but hard agree with everything you said.
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
@srasmus Live a lazy life, get lazy rewards.
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 :)
end every sentence with MOM!
Only if you get nothing from it.
Keeps the dust off your bed
Keeps the moisture in
Better to just leave it in a pile
Exactly, you don’t want the bedbugs to feel unwelcome!
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.
Because science.
Science says unmade is healthier
You know that’s a satirical article, right?
Something about unmade is a worse environment for dust mites.
I don’t make my bed too, but I swear there is some psychological/ritual shit going on in there. Another example would be why go to the church. Can’t we just pray and confess on our own balcony?
Why hang up Christmas lights only to take them down a week later?
Why read when (if) we can inject knowledge into our brain?
Why workout when we can just inject steroids?
Some of there stuff are more of a waste of time than others, and I suspect it is the reason OP has this (un)popular opinion.
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.
I’ll take this a step further - I sit or lie on my bed all the time just to rest for a bit or chill for a bit. For me, a made bed with a blanket on top is just enough to separate the sanctuary of under the covers from the outside world.
Like I don’t want to come home after a day of riding around the metro, sitting on a park bench, and then go straight onto my sheets. It’d be akin to rubbing a thousand asses on the place I lay my head at night.
Minor distinction and largely mental, but enough to motivate me to make the bed.
I don’t do it because I’m lazy, and I’m just going to pull it apart again in a few hours.
