14 Things Only Neat Messy People Understand

1. You like a little bit of clutter, because it makes your place look lived in, rather than like a hospital waiting room, where everything is sanitized and you kind of want to cry all the time.

2. You secretly despise it when a roommate describes your living space as “dirty.” It’s not dirty; it’s cluttered aka a bunch of clean stuff piled on top of other clean stuff.

3. Unlike what your mom might say when she visits, you do in fact know where everything is, just instead of always keeping your keys on a peg by the door, you keep them on the coffee table under your Entertainment Weekly.

4. You actually really enjoy cleaning; you just like doing it once a month for an entire weekend.

5. Whenever you do laundry, you will promptly fold everything, then stick the folded stacks on your desk chair, where you will grab clothes as needed until it’s laundry day again.

6. You’re seriously okay if a guest spills something on your rug, because you understand that accidents happen, and you’ve spilled on that rug enough times that you’re an expert at removing stains from it.

7. Finding roommates can be a serious challenge. If they’re too clean, they won’t be able to handle your free-spirited it’s-okay-to-wear-shoes-inside lifestyle, but if they’re too messy, you’re going to turn into the strict trash-needs-to-be-taken-out-promptly roommate, and you’re not okay with either of these. Neat messy people must live with other neat messy people.

8. You’re always finding random socks when you least expect it. It’s a fun game you like to call, “How’d That Get There?”

9. Cleaning schedules are your nemesis. You’ll clean everything, just on your own time, okay?

10. You have multiple drawers full of “miscellaneous” stuff, which houses all of that stuff that you don’t really know where to put, but also don’t want littering your apartment. It’s kind of like when iTunes lists a song with a lot of singers as “Various Artists.” It’s all necessary, but not similar enough to have one easy label.

11. When someone’s coming to your apartment unexpectedly, it doesn’t take long to clean up. Clothes are picked up and magazines are straightened. Given fifteen minutes, you can make your apartment presentable.

12. While you never actually make your bed, you do like to smooth out the blankets until they’re mostly flat.

13. Whenever you deep clean your apartment, you feel a calming sense of accomplishment, but only feel complete once a jacket’s hung across a chair or some books are strewn artfully across a table.

14. Your car holds an identical ratio of clutter to clean as your apartment. There are a few sweaters, an umbrella you haven’t needed for two months, maybe a few magazines you forgot about. You like your car to feel like home.