Bible_Belt
Master Don Juan
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2010/09/23/nyc-bedbugs-dating-in-the-age-of-bedbugs/
September 23, 2010
Love Bites: Dating in the Age of Bedbugs
By Jessica Firger
A few weeks ago, I discovered a bedbug infestation in my Brooklyn apartment. The most stressful part was not finding dead bugs in my sheets or bagging and washing 25 bags of clothes and linens. No, it was the moment when I picked up the phone and had to tell the fellow I recently started dating. Thankfully, he took the news in stride. I brought him a bottle of bedbug repellent to mark our one-month anniversary the following week.
It wasn’t long after that he called me with more bad news: He’d found the by-now familiar telltale breakfast, lunch and dinner bites on his legs and side. But he wasn’t sure whether he’d gotten them at his place or mine. In the following weeks of our whirlwind romance, we dressed in hallways, checked glue traps and examined each other before Sunday brunch.
This story is hardly unique. The pests have become a sort of anti-Cupid for city singles, in some cases slowing the progress of budding relationships and in others bringing romance to a dead stop.
“Condoms don’t protect against bedbugs,” observed Cameron Macay, a 29-year-old student who lives in Williamsburg. Macay, who is single, admits to panic whenever he stays over at a woman’s apartment and feels even a little itchy at night.
It’s still easier to get herpes than bedbugs (one in five Americans has herpes; about one in ten New Yorkers has bedbugs), and sexually-transmitted diseases are a far more serious risk for amorous New Yorkers. But many city dwellers have an outsized fear of contracting the tiny pests in the course of a one-night stand or a burgeoning relationship.
A bedbug infestation, like a torrid romance, briefly and suddenly consumes the lives of the afflicted — only the insects stick their victims with weeks of cleaning and vacuuming, thousands of dollars in expenses and continuous stress. Simply put, it’s a lot easier to break up with a human than a bedbug.
When Chad Bernhard, 37, endured a severe infestation in his Bushwick apartment, he took a two-week breather from the woman he was seeing at the time. “I didn’t want to be the jerk who screwed someone else,” the audio engineer said.
On dating sites, where profiles often tout daters’ disease- and drug-free status, the bedbug fear is evident. One woman, who preferred her name not appear, said that several people on the OKCupid dating site stopped writing to her once they’d learned she was dealing with an infestation.
Exterminator Mike Masterson, owner of Isotech, a national pest-control firm, said he’s seen several relationships crumble under the strain of a bedbug infestation. (One couple, Isotech clients, nearly divorced over their bedbug episode, he said.)
Masterson’s advice to the lovelorn: Even if you believe you’ve met Mr. or Ms. Right, head straight to the Whirlpool. “You may as well strip down together and share that intimate moment in the laundry room,” he said.
September 23, 2010
Love Bites: Dating in the Age of Bedbugs
By Jessica Firger
A few weeks ago, I discovered a bedbug infestation in my Brooklyn apartment. The most stressful part was not finding dead bugs in my sheets or bagging and washing 25 bags of clothes and linens. No, it was the moment when I picked up the phone and had to tell the fellow I recently started dating. Thankfully, he took the news in stride. I brought him a bottle of bedbug repellent to mark our one-month anniversary the following week.
It wasn’t long after that he called me with more bad news: He’d found the by-now familiar telltale breakfast, lunch and dinner bites on his legs and side. But he wasn’t sure whether he’d gotten them at his place or mine. In the following weeks of our whirlwind romance, we dressed in hallways, checked glue traps and examined each other before Sunday brunch.
This story is hardly unique. The pests have become a sort of anti-Cupid for city singles, in some cases slowing the progress of budding relationships and in others bringing romance to a dead stop.
“Condoms don’t protect against bedbugs,” observed Cameron Macay, a 29-year-old student who lives in Williamsburg. Macay, who is single, admits to panic whenever he stays over at a woman’s apartment and feels even a little itchy at night.
It’s still easier to get herpes than bedbugs (one in five Americans has herpes; about one in ten New Yorkers has bedbugs), and sexually-transmitted diseases are a far more serious risk for amorous New Yorkers. But many city dwellers have an outsized fear of contracting the tiny pests in the course of a one-night stand or a burgeoning relationship.
A bedbug infestation, like a torrid romance, briefly and suddenly consumes the lives of the afflicted — only the insects stick their victims with weeks of cleaning and vacuuming, thousands of dollars in expenses and continuous stress. Simply put, it’s a lot easier to break up with a human than a bedbug.
When Chad Bernhard, 37, endured a severe infestation in his Bushwick apartment, he took a two-week breather from the woman he was seeing at the time. “I didn’t want to be the jerk who screwed someone else,” the audio engineer said.
On dating sites, where profiles often tout daters’ disease- and drug-free status, the bedbug fear is evident. One woman, who preferred her name not appear, said that several people on the OKCupid dating site stopped writing to her once they’d learned she was dealing with an infestation.
Exterminator Mike Masterson, owner of Isotech, a national pest-control firm, said he’s seen several relationships crumble under the strain of a bedbug infestation. (One couple, Isotech clients, nearly divorced over their bedbug episode, he said.)
Masterson’s advice to the lovelorn: Even if you believe you’ve met Mr. or Ms. Right, head straight to the Whirlpool. “You may as well strip down together and share that intimate moment in the laundry room,” he said.