#2. Collecting things

If you know someone who has three or more items that share a common oddball theme, that person is a “collector” and most likely, what they collect is “crap”. The other day I was a watching a Food Network program that featured people who were proudly showing off the items they had collected over the years, such as 1000 different hamburger figurines or 2000 different bottles of hot sauce. Correct me if I am wrong but this seems as pointless as Amy Winehouse swearing off drugs.

Collecting things and displaying them proudly is actually not something to be proud of. It screams you have too much time on your hands and nothing that breathes oxygen to receive your affection, that your life is so devoid of meaning that your collection of state quarters serves as a sad surrogate for happiness. Or that you are just a greedy hoarder who lacks self-control, both of which are already unsexy traits. I’m being presumptuous by speaking on behalf of my female counterparts (the normal ones anyway), but I believe most gents (the normal ones anyway) would agree as well. For either sex, nothing makes a noodle go limper than seeing your beau’s apartment for the first time and finding a shelf full of “collectible” teacups or a room filled with “collectible” Sox memorabilia. Although “collectible” from a semantic point of view means “able to collect”, that does not mean “you should collect”. There’s not even a semantic variation for that, so do us and Webster a favor and refrain from this bad habit.

Here are some examples of collecting no-no’s:

• Anything that you see featured on QVC. Why any sane person would choose to watch QVC is beyond me.
• Which includes anything that resembles a figurine – or rather a figure of anything. Your girlfriend is all the figure that you should ever need.
• As aforementioned, memorabilia. If it’s sports-related, keep it deeply hidden unless you are actually at the stadium rooting for your team. If it’s movie related, no one is impressed by your Godfather poster.
• All the different colored bottles of Vitaminwater to be aligned in a rainbow-like spectrum. You might think its clever but you should actually be recycling it.
  

Exceptions to the rule:

• Ticket stubs: There’s the sentimental value, but there’s also the other side that relishes in having physical proof that you saw Britney Spears before she went bat shit crazy.
• Random business cards that people give you. If someone annoying/unattractive asks for your business card, and you don’t have the heart to say no, just give them one from the random stack in your purse. If chosen carefully, they wont be the wiser until they actually call that person and you might just earn good karma for potentially bringing them closer to their soulmate.
• Real cars: If you are rich enough to do this, you are pretty much rich enough to do whatever the fuck you want
• Books: Literacy is sexy.

N/B: Though I’ve had the fortune of avoiding such people, knowing that they exist is enough to put this hypothetical near the top of my dealbreaker list.