My sad sack story
Well, OK. My GF is Chinese and she doesn't have an appreciation for the stuff I collect or my house. As I said in a previous thread, she has her place and I have mine. And her place is all airy and white and minimalist. My place is too complicated. It's funny, if I have a friend over, they don't look at my place or care, they just help themselves to a beer. But if they're with their wife, the wife always freaks and wants a tour and so on. And a guy used my basement (it's huge) to shoot a movie this summer and one scene had a dozen woman in lingerie in it. So, I had a dozen model/stripper types running around my place in the skimpiest of skimpy underwear and they where telling me they wanted to move in with me and stuff. So, basically what I'm saying is, I'm dating the only woman in a 50 mile radius that turns her nose up at my decor! Some guys have said "Boy, I bet you get a lot of chicks with this place." Ha!
So, anyway, to your question. When she stops in and sees my 13th toaster sitting on the counter with Styrofoam peanuts all over the kitchen floor and stuck to the cats, or when she sees my 213th lamp illuminating a corner of my living room and she gives me that look, I can now say "Hey, don't give me that look. I met these crazy bastards who collect washing machines and driers. How would you like that? Or I could build a new wing onto my house and collect all of the 100 different colors that the Hoover Convertible was available in? Would you prefer that? Because there're people out there that do that you know and I can prove it. Do you want to see the pictures?" and it puts my compulsive collecting in perspective. That was the longest sentence I ever strung together. So, joining automaticwasher.org has helped my relationship and I've used that trump card more than once now. And it kind of works. She can understand that it could be worse and that maybe she should count her blessings. So, thank you all for that help.