Ryan has been dating a girl for a little while but has never seen her apartment. When she finally had him over he was horrified to find she has hundreds of stuffed animals all over her apartment. Is this a red flag? Would you be comfortable being in an adult’s apartment with her hundreds of stuffed animals all around you?
Ayla Brown: Hi, Ryan. Good morning. I got your Facebook message and I’m just glad we set up a call because this is very interesting. Hi. Tell me about the girl that you’ve been dating.
Ryan: So I’m dating this girl, and things are very, very good. I’ve had some not great luck of late. Kind of took some time off. Met this girl. I got revitalized again about seeing people, and I really like her.
Ayla Brown: Okay, good.
Ryan: So in our situation, we obviously live separately. And I have an apartment. She has an apartment, and we’re always at my house. And I ask her, Hey, can we go to your place? And she says, Oh, I’ve got a roommate. And my roommate is kind of a pain and she’s in Everett. I’m in Malden. You know, it’s not crazy far away, but I didn’t really think much of it. You know, we want peace and privacy and my place provides that.
Ayla Brown: Okay.
Ryan: So recently I had construction going on in my house. My house is a mess. It was just everywhere. And so I asked her, I said, Hey, how about we go to your place? And she says, That’s fine. My roommate’s out of town. It’s perfect. So we go to her house, walk in the door, and there areā¦ when I say lots and we’re talking hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of stuffed animals everywhere.
Ayla Brown: Like a hoarder? Like the show Hoarders? Like that many stuffed animals?
Ryan: Yeah, a hoarder, sure, or a collector. They’re posed. They’re color coordinated.
Ayla Brown: No!
Ryan: Some are in the kitchen with forks in their hands. Some are in the living room with the remote control.
Ayla Brown: No, no, wait. Hold on, Ryan. You’re telling me she opens up the door and you walk into her place for the first time. You’re telling me this was the first time you walk in there and there are hundreds of stuffed animals posed around the house doing various things like watching TV sitting at the dinner table? Okay, My initial question, I’m just going to ask it. Did she say they’re hers or she does live with a roommate. So are they the roommates or hers?
Ryan: I gathered from our conversation. It’s her place. She owns it. The roommate has a room, but they’re hers. And she mentioned it. She said something about them. I can tell she was embarrassed by it because I don’t know if she knew how I was going to react to it.
Ayla Brown: And how did you react?
Ryan: I was in shock. It was a little off putting. I mean, I really like her, but I couldn’t live that way. I mean, that was kind of an immediate choice that I made. Okay, this is a deal breaker. So now you know what I thought was a dream girl? I’m wondering now, is she crazy? I’m hesitant to move forward. I’ve stepped back the last week or so since this happened. She can tell. Yeah. And I’m like, is anyone else out there ever seeing anything jaw dropping like this? Because it shook me to my core.
Ayla Brown: A couple is fine. I walked into my sister’s spare bedroom and I counted once. She had 27 stuffed animals on the bed, and I was like, What are you doing with all these? I do feel like girls collect and keep a lot of sentimental things in our lives, especially stuffed animals. But hundreds of them? That’s different.
