Ignore the mess!

Why are we all so weird about having guests over?

Until recently, I had considered it a point of pride that I had finally trained myself out of the habit of compulsively deflecting compliments. Over the years, I had conditioned myself to almost physically bite my tongue when someone would say I was talented or successful or attractive. Every time, I wanted to present them with a series of counterpoints, but I learned to keep quiet, instead. To say thank you and move on.

I knew what it was like to watch someone brush off every kind word, how exhausting it could be. I also knew how it looked, like I was fishing for reassurance, more kind words. In actuality, my impulse to push away compliments — to point out to someone why I was clearly not as attractive or talented or successful as they might think — has never been out of humility or even a desire for reassurance, but something closer to control. No one could ever make me feel bad about an aspect of myself that I had already examined carefully and held up for everyone else to see, too. No one could surprise me. No shame would be unfamiliar or uncharted. I decided that every dark and dusty corner of myself would be known plainly to me long before anyone else ever made me aware of them. And though I’ve liked to think I’ve hit my 30s and officially grown out of vocalizing this, I’m realizing lately that that’s not quite true.

Take, for example, having guests over. A totally normal life experience that turns me into a somehow, impossibly more neurotic version of my usual self. Rationally, I know that no one goes to someone’s house and expects a gleaming palace, a hotel of endless wonders. I certainly don’t. Most times I go over to someone’s house and all I really want is for someone to suggest we binge-watch Love Is Blind and eat Doritos. And yet, as the day of hosting approaches, I forget all of this completely. Instead, I enter what I think of as a great, swirling panic, a phenomenon that I am fairly certain has been experienced by most women, generations over. I am a constantly moving blur of a human being with a Swiffer glued to one hand and a Magic Eraser sponge in the other. I am barking orders at whoever will listen. I am suddenly deeply understanding of those who buy Doodle breeds for their anti-shedding properties. I am, almost always, out of Clorox wipes, a realization which devastates me, but is generally ok because the other part of this cycle is that I will soon be going to the store and purchasing 37 items that feel necessary, but are not. It doesn’t matter if said guests are coming over for casual drinks or dinner or a week-long stay. In every case, I am still convinced that they will need: Seven types of artisanal meats, 14 blocks of cheese, much more elevated hand soap, 12 extra rolls of toilet paper, seltzer (both flavored and unflavored), bougie wine, mid-range wine, basic wine. Any wine. All the wine.

I’ve also discovered that having guests over also means that I lose almost any ability to act rationally or to control my desire to not only deflect compliments, but actively combat them. I am incapable of giving people a tour of our home without pointing out what is wrong with it, room by room, bit by bit. The curtains are too short, I know. The bedding is obviously wrong. The couch is fine for now but it’ll go eventually, of course. This is all temporary. A work in progress. Getting there! This impulse is perhaps strongest in our current home, the first place we have owned and our first old renovation experience. But truthfully, this feeling has existed in every place I’ve ever lived. When we rented a row home in Philly with an inexplicably brown 1970s bathtub, I’d give people who were over for casual drinks a tour and rip back the shower curtain when we got to the guest bathroom, display the tub in a grand reveal. “Isn’t this the ugliest bathtub you’ve ever seen?” I’d ask, like I was the host on a very dark HGTV show. Odds are, these people would have come and gone without ever even glancing at the bathtub, but it was as if I had to be sure to show it to them, just in case they thought I’d missed it.

There’s a common trope about entering a perfectly organized, clean home and the host laughably asking guests to, “Ignore the mess!” The joke being, of course: What mess? The implication is that the host is just performing some ridiculous ritual of humility, the housekeeping equivalent of saying, “Oh, this old thing?” when complimented on a gorgeous designer gown. But I, too, have been guilty of saying something similar when welcoming guests into my home, even knowing that I just spent the last 24 hours aggressively waving a Swiffer around my home. It’s not so much because I think the house is truly messy (or that the curtains or bedding or couch or in-progress renovations are truly, heinously unacceptable), but that I am protected by assuming the worst. If there’s even a small chance that someone else will think one of these things, I will beat them to it every time. I’ve already considered it. I’m one step ahead of them. They can’t hurt me. My brain thinks I’m winning something even though, of course, that’s not the case at all.

Once, when I was a fashion editor, I attended a group workout class hosted by an activewear brand. As soon as I walked in the room, it was obvious to me that I was one of the few people there who was larger than a size 6. “We look like a before and after image,” I said to the person next to me, nodding toward the blonde girl in front of me, her outfit so similar to my own. In the moment, my classmate’s laughter at the joke made me feel more confident. Safe. I had said the thing that everyone else — or even one other person — might be thinking about me. I won, I thought. That moment was almost a decade ago now, and I still think of it every so often. I had been so determined to hurt my own feelings first, so comforted by the flimsy sense of control this gave me. I was almost happy to ignore the ways I was chipping away at myself.

I cringe at that memory now, and can count the ways I am a different person. Generally, I am kinder to myself, more conscious of how I speak about myself (especially in relation to others), but I still see the habit poke through, sometimes. The other day at a cocktail party, someone I had been newly introduced to said, “Oh, you’re a writer?” their tone somewhere between intrigued and impressed. And do you know what I did? I looked at my hands and shrugged and then said, “Sort of. I guess.” I felt the words coming out of my mouth and some deep part of me was screaming no, no, no, Olivia! Don’t do this! And if I’m honest, this isn’t even a part of me that is wildly confident or proud of myself, but one that knows how it looks to be so unsure of yourself. So small, so weak. I mean, I had just written it almost verbatim in an essay: If I’m not going to stand up straight and call myself an author and own it, then who is? What the hell was wrong with me, I wondered, as other people at the party stood up for me, explained that of course I was a writer, and that I had just published a book. And even then, as I nodded, it was like a Powerpoint presentation was unfolding in my brain: 99 Reasons Why You Might Not Like Or Respect That Book, just in case you think I haven’t already thought of them, too. It’s both completely amazing and utterly unsurprising to me that I still can find ways to diminish myself or my work so quickly, that I do it so unflinchingly. Sometimes it feels like the most natural part of me.

But I also think that this exists in me because it is something that has been conditioned into all women, in one way or another. We have all been taught to account for the perception of ourselves to every person in every room, in every meeting. How can we fine tune our personalities, lives, faces, bodies, work, so that we are as universally palatable as possible? How can we ensure this? How can we make everyone comfortable with the choices we have made? How can we keep ourselves safe?

The more I think about it, the more I think the “Ignore the mess!” trope is less a commentary on perfection as it is protection. I don’t think it’s about asking anyone to ignore anything as much as it is pointing something out. It’s about making everyone aware that we see our dark, dusty corners, too, and hoping that the knowledge saves us from hurt or judgment somewhere down the line. It makes sense to me that I feel this so acutely when it comes to my home, a place I have carefully curated and assembled based on the things I love. It’s a vulnerable thing to say, “These are the things that make me feel like myself. These are the spaces that make me feel at ease,” and knowing that someone else might not see that, too, or feel it, or get it. Inviting someone into your home is a lot like writing in that sense. They’re both intimate tours of the things that deeply matter to you. You have hand-picked what parts of yourself to put on display. It’s something that makes someone like me want to grasp for a bit of control, even at my own expense.

I used to think getting older and growing as a person would feel smoother. One day, I thought, I would be 30 and therefore, certain things would click. I would open my eyes one morning and simply accept how I looked or the terrifying possibility of being disliked. I would mature into this naturally, I assumed, without thinking, like growing taller, losing baby teeth. In reality, it all takes work. Learning how to not apologize for ourselves or our homes or our work takes work. It is uncomfortable and often messy work, a thing that occasionally makes me want to explain myself, too. “Ignore the mess!” I imagine saying to someone after I’ve just diminished myself or my accomplishments. “I’m a work in progress! Getting there!” Sometimes I think this would actually help, if we all were more honest about the ways we are trying to be nicer to ourselves and occasionally failing. Other times, I wonder if the person would tilt their head to the side, smile at me like I was a bit off. Maybe they wouldn’t be able to see the mess at all.

PS: Come see me on tour!

A portion of August’s subscriber proceeds will go toward the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is currently working to build, enforce, protect and defend legal protections for reproductive rights around the world (including in Florida, where I grew up, and there is currently a 6-week abortion ban).