After the end of my last serious relationship, I opted out of the circus that is rebound dating for nearly a year. During this hibernation period, I had a breakup couch experience that felt kismet—it was love at first sit. (The Muse really is that girl!) Now that I’m finally ready to put myself out there again, my strategy has been to proceed with caution and beware of the red flags as I openly advertise my single status. I recently redownloaded a dating app and while most of the profiles that pop up are remarkably cringe worthy, there’s something that has been grabbing my attention in a good way: images of interiors.
Every so often as I’m endlessly doom swiping, I’ll spot a photo of a living room or bedroom on a profile. If I was feeling uncertain about the person, this would become my deciding factor. I didn’t need convincing for a therapist with designer chairs perfectly placed in his living room (I swiped right, we didn’t match), but when I came across the corner of a skater’s bedroom that was suspiciously tidy, I had to deliberate for a few minutes. (We matched and proceeded to message back and forth for a few days, but haven’t met up.) You can tell a lot about a person based on the way that they live and I never want to be in a nightmare situation where I find myself relating hard to the “Damn, bitch, you live like this?” meme. Our interiors are an extension of our most authentic selves so we should view the homeplace as a portal into our secluded universe.
When I think about some of the apartments that I’ve visited throughout my dating history, very few of them are worth remembering and I would do almost anything to forget most of them à la Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It’s all about context so I won’t judge someone for living their truth or for factors that are beyond their control in this flopping economy, but some of my glaring red flags are books that have clearly never been read (especially if they only hold real estate on the coffee table), one too many KAWS toys in the room, and a mattress on the floor with navy sheets. But if you have the Supreme/Artek Aalto Stool 60 or a Gaetano Pesce vessel in your possession, my DMs are wide open because that is a flex. I don’t mean to sound like a snob (these are personal preferences after all), but you have to draw the line somewhere, otherwise you’ll wind up looking like a fool that got played by a clown!
As I carried on with my romantic pursuits, I began wondering if this is something that others in the design industry take into consideration when they’re dating too. Regardless of your background, are there obvious red flags that we should all be on the lookout for? Context clues behind closed doors that reveal a person’s true colors? I spoke with eight experts I trust—because they have good taste—to find out what gives them the ick and what gives them butterflies when entering the space of a potential lover for the first time.
DIY disasters
According to Lula Galeano of Studio Galeón, there’s nothing worse than a bad DIY job. Though the architectural designer understands that the furniture market is expensive, surely there are better hacks for brutalism building materials that will give you a bang for your buck. “A cinderblock doesn’t belong in your house,” Colin King says. “If that’s your table base then it’s a huge problem.” The interiors stylist also points out how so many guys will poorly attempt to make Donald Judd–inspired chairs, but “it’s just a plywood square chair and I’m like ‘This is not working for you.’” So before you decide to salvage something like a bucket or barrel that you found on the street and use it as a nightstand or coffee table, consider other budget-friendly options from places like IKEA, Target, or Floyd.