Do you find yourself saying that a lot? Does every "special" date (you know, the third or fourth one or even the first if you are impetuous and particularly fit), no matter how promising, suddenly go horribly wrong when you invite the wondrous person back to your place for, er, coffee? Maybe you don't realise that you are actually practising Household Object Safe Sex ie there are items in your living zone the presence of which pretty much guarantee that no one is going to grace your home long enough to take off his or her coat, let alone anything else. There are certain things that, either on display or in locations where they will be easily found by only mildly inquisitive visitors, will definitely put the maximum damper on your love life, so either bin them, hide them well or sneak them into the room of someone you think could do with losing out on a few amorous encounters. Here is your Unlucky Seven of guaranteed passion killers.
Supplies of medicine for assorted off-putting ailments
It's not just the fifteen different kinds of haemorrhoid ointment or big bottles of lotion for treating pubic lice that can send a potential partner shrieking into the night. Almost anyone's romantic ardour is going to be a bit dampened if they discover that you not only suffer from fungal toenail infections but have to put those charcoal pads in your underwear to minimize the effects of your persistent flatulence and repeatedly blast the wax from your ears with something not unlike an industrial pressure hose. Really desperate prolefood
Own-brand oven chips, sliced white and economy instant powdered tea, boil-in-the-bag curries, tinned pies full of mystery meat and no fruit and veg apart from dented tins of baked beans do not give a hot date the best impression. He or she will think that being taken out for dinner by you will involve a trip to some obscure chain of fast-food restaurants where the cabaret consists of getting mugged for your mobile phone. Enormous collection of self-help books
Especially if they are all called things like It's OK to be Desperate and Needy, Why All Men Are Beasts Who Won't Commit, How To Get Married in 30 Days or, if you are male, Coping With Impotence, Make Any Woman Do Really Depraved Stuff With You or Masculinity In Crisis: It's All Women's Fault. Mind you, books about deranged conspiracy theories, cuckoo Secrets of the Lost Tribe Down The Road or ways of making it to assistant deputy head of the stationery cupboard before you're 45 don't give a great impression either. Indications that you are an enthusiastic member of a peculiar religious cult
Such as a large and baleful portrait of a notorious cult leader, badly-printed flyers full of spelling mistakes and bizarre claims that are obviously there to be handed out to visitors, and asking your guest to participate in a strange ritual before eating or drinking anything. Alarming pets
Whether it's a dozen leaping, baying, slobbering dogs that are all called things like Lung-Ripper, Psycho and Very Naughty or a tarantula, scorpion or venomous snake that's allowed free run of the house, not many people are reassured by claims that "He/She *likes* you, honestly. He/she doesn"t usually take people's limbs off or pump deadly poison into them the first time they meet him/her.' Revolting squalor
Now I'd be the first to agree that excessive housework is a social-cultural trap designed to keep women enslaved by guilt and all the rest of it, and that men already know that life is too short to dust the light fittings twice a day, but certain things go way beyond... Stained underwear all over the place, a splotch of long-dried-but-never-cleared-up vomit, all-singing-all-dancing vermin infestations around a teetering pile of unwashed dishes: your hot date won't just flee, he/she will probably consider calling some sort of community care official in. Corpse of previous lover, stuffed
This is not OK even if you did tell your new friend your family name was Bates.
