“You’re beautiful,” a friend told me recently.

“You’re beautiful too!” I replied.

“No, men aren’t beautiful. We’re vile, filthy creatures.”

It’s not the first time I’ve heard this misguided belief system about women being comparatively clean and pure. And I can’t speak for other ladies. But if you think we ovary vessels are all Snow White and silken sheets…

Welp, I’m not the droid you’re looking for, sweet prince.

You see, under the right conditions, we’re all only ever just a breath away from being utterly disgusting, ambulatory petri dishes – regardless of what’s happening between our legs. If you’ve not cohabitated with a chick before, you might still have an idea of them as princesses. If you have, though, guess what? You’re still not seeing the whole picture. ‘cause we’re all different when we’re alone for long enough. So, naturally, I betrayed my coven, and told him “you have no idea”. All it takes is a little social seclusion and a place of your own. And before you know it, you’re no Disney princess. Just a dirt version of the bag lady from The Labyrinth. Thus, without further preemptory verbage, I present part 1 of 2:

Top 10 Signs You Might Be A Recluse:

1. More than once have you let the washed laundry in the machine hang out long enough before going into the dryer that you have to run the washing machine a second time.

And more than once have you had to do this more than once for the same load.

2. You look around your home and think “I’m not that bad.” Then somebody asks to come over. And you morph into a multi-armed Hindu God in order to clean this un-presentable shit hole fast enough.

3. Enough time in isolation has made you have to believe that, yes, there is a chance that the Woodland creatures will show up to do your cleaning for you. If you wish hard enough.

4. In public, you’re a “napkin on the lap” type. In private, your clothes have so many dinner stains by the end of the meal, that they look like they’ve been made by Urban Outfitters and cast in a porn.

5. Giant Hefty bags on doorknobs have slowly replaced the quaint trashcan you dreamily bought with stars in your eyes when you first moved in.

6. The toilet paper sits atop the empty roll of the last one. Why not? It’s only gonna run out soon too. Just like its father. And his father. Bastards. All of them.

7. Once you finally get out and around people, you realize that your bitchy resting face has made you look like an angry Australopithecus and that you have lockjaw from not having spoken to anyone for several days in a row. Reentering society is basically the facial version of that scene in Forrest Gump when he has to keep running till his leg braces fall off. Painful. And you feel mildly retarded all the while, trying to read people.

8. I could clean the shower. Mmmyes. I could. Or…. or I could just leave the lights out anytime I do anything in there that doesn’t involve looking into the patch of mirror that doesn’t have stains on it. Where did those come from? What are they eve-…?

Aaaand… the lights are off again.

9. Speaking of shower – why should I this morning? For whom? What’s the rush here?

Hey, let’s make a deal – I’ll do it later and clean while I’m in there.

If my animal assistants show up.

10. And whenever you do leave home to enter the harsh world…

…you’re dreaming of returning to it the whole time.

(Continued).