Love isn't always blind

You meet someone you like. He's smart, kind, loving, giving, funny, cute, etc.

You see each other a while and then get to the point at which you're going to take it to the next level. One day, after dinner or a movie or a hike, the two of you head to his place.

You're turned on, he's turned on, his light gets turned on and then ...

well, and then you're face to face with how he lives, and it isn't always pretty.

A friend forwarded me a NY Times article about what some dates’ homes reveal about them, "It's not you, it's your apartment" — http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/garden/29breakers.html?_r=1&ei=5087%0A&em=&en=8fe5465208e08c14&ex=1175313600&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1175551215-/8TvDoMPWCxMa7udpj3t4A

It's pretty funny, and, I suppose to a certain extent, true. But I can't say a guy's home would be a deal-breaker — unless it was something out of "Silence of the Lambs" perhaps. But you can learn a lot about a person by observing what's around him — people, doodads in his office and the place he calls home.

When I met Rob, it was love at first sight. No, not of him, but of his San Francisco flat — all masculine and leathery — but specifically his bed sheets. They weren't flowery things he took from his mother or some plaid pattern left over from his college dorm days. They were cream, gray and black dotted designer sheets — nicer than mine! Since we're divorced, you can pretty much gather he lost his good sense of taste somewhere along the line ...

Then I began dating. Most of my beaus gravitated over to my place, but not all.

Mark's house was palatial — a five-bedroom spread in Tiburon with a pool and a hot tub and a wine cellar and a gourmet kitchen that was bigger than my entire home. But it was so immaculate, so sterile, it looked as if were ready-made for a H&G or Pottery Barn catalog photo shoot and not a place where you'd put your feet up on the coffee table or tucked under you as you curled up on the couch. It looked as if no one actually lived in it. It made me nervous, and I felt relieved when that brief fling was over.

Ryan's Sausalito house was small and nondescript but with an amazing view — outside. A somewhat geeky dot-commer, he barely had any furniture at all, but whatever he did have was frayed and stained and just background for all his computers and multi-wired techy stuff.

Dan, on the verge of buying into a TIC in San Francisco, had a couch, a table, a bed, a huge widescreen TV and about 50 candleholders. Oh yes, and a kitchen table that once or twice came in very handy. But I was always fearful the place would go up in flames while we were occupied.

Then I met Sean. The first time I walked into Sean's condo — as excited as I was to be there — I had to take a deep breath.

His carpet was either a throwback to some really bad era I wanted no part of, or it was so hip and on-the-cusp of trendy that no one had quite yet figured out that it was the new black — it's a spring-lime greenish monstrosity.

"That's an interesting color," I noted with, I'm sure, no hint of emotion in my voice.

"So I've been told."

Well at least his other female friends had good taste.

But I felt the need to probe further — as in, did he pick it when he moved in, or was it an "as is" situation.

"So did they install it when you moved in, or ...?"

"No, it was here."

Hmm, still, shouldn't he have demanded it be replaced?

"You're lucky your couch has enough green in it to work well with it, otherwise ..."

"Oh, I bought the couch to match it."

Now I was really starting to sweat.

"Yeah," he continued, "I needed a lot of help finding one because I'm colorblind."

Colorblind? I stopped sweating immediately until I was ready to sweat for all the right reasons.

If the person you were hot for lived like something out of a ruffly pink-satin-pillowed Harlequin romance novel or a heavy metal-postered college dorm, deal breaker or what?

And if you ever moved in together, what goes, what stays?