Kristy Kelly: It’s not personal. It’s self-preservation
“You never invite me to your house,” and, “You never come to mine when I invite you,” are two complaints I hear more than I care to admit.
It’s not personal. It’s self-preservation.
Self-isolation has evolved into a preference over the years—a comfort zone rather than a coping mechanism. It has nothing to do with the person doing the inviting, and everything to do with my brain refusing to feel safe in places it hasn't thoroughly vetted, memorized, or mentally mapped out.
Other people’s homes make me feel like I’ve crawled inside their turtle shells. Intimate. Exposed. Like I’m witnessing a version of them they didn’t mean for me to see. And I have so many questions.
What am I allowed to touch? What’s off-limits? Is that vase decorative, or is someone’s ashes in there? Where do you stash your clutter? Where is the real you hiding beneath this curated shrine to Martha Stewart and Better Homes & Gardens? I need to know where your chaos lives—because if you don’t have any, how are we even friends?
Don’t get me started on when everything matches. If your living room looks like it belongs on the cover of Southern Living, I physically cannot relax. I’ll perch awkwardly on the tiniest corner of the couch, terrified to ruffle a throw pillow or leave a wrinkle on your pristine slipcover.
I’m too curious. Too awkward. Too forgetful. One time, I accidentally walked out with a cute little penguin knick-knack because I couldn’t remember where I picked it up. I had to come back and return it in person like some sort of absent-minded thief. Did that sound oddly specific? That’s because it’s an incredibly specific and embarrassing memory.
And let’s talk about dinner. I’m a barely-recovered food hoarder who eats in clockwise order and gets so caught up remembering basic table manners that I forget to actually taste the food. Perfectly set tables with coordinated plates, cloth napkins, and more than two forks are a hard no. I was raised by wolves. Wolves who used paper towels and ate over the sink.
If you hand me a salad fork, a dessert fork, and a dinner fork, I’m leaving hungry. I do not have the bandwidth to decode your cutlery hierarchy. I wish you could’ve seen me the first time I sat down at a cruise ship dinner table—staff eventually learned to silently remove the “extra” utensils before I even sat down. Propriety should never be this complicated.
My house, on the other hand, is a direct reflection of my mental health. Sometimes it’s immaculate. Everything has a place, and most things are in them. Other times, it’s a creative war zone: open notebooks, abandoned coffee mugs, post-it notes breeding like fruit flies. My trail is visible in every room—crumbs of thought and distraction. If you move something, you might throw off the entire ecosystem of my productivity.
Living with me would be a nightmare for the neurotypical. Thankfully, no neurotypicals share my space.
I’m weird about my things. But I’m also weird with my things. And that weirdness needs space—space to stretch, breathe, and most importantly, not be judged by your matching floral napkins.
That said, I do envy your ability to know where things go, to match your dishes to your curtains, to balance natural light with privacy. My home often looks like it was decorated by raccoons with a Pinterest account and a caffeine problem. Honestly, sometimes it feels like a vampire lair in there.
So please—don’t be offended if I don’t invite you into my inner sanctum of chaos. I’m doing it for your protection and well-being. And if I decline to hang out at your place, it’s not rejection—it’s just that it takes about 6 to 10 years, a few near-death experiences, and at least three mutually embarrassing moments before I feel comfortable enough to be in your space.
Besides, I’m funnier in text anyway.
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