Pop Culture is quite possibly the best medium for insights into just how important a nicely furnished apartment is for leading healthy personal and fulfilling social lives. They remind us about the realities of our own circumstances and living conditions that we seem to forget when examining day-to-day life through the lens of Insta accounts and Facebook profiles. Here are some of those telling truths:
1. Home is where you get laid
Amy and Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory
Unless you are going to check into an AirBnb to ‘Get a Room, India!’ as GoIbibo’s (an online travel company) tagline decrees, you are going to be bringing your Tinder date back to your palace if thing’s go swell on date night. Your home is the sexy and romantic alternative to a staycation that is something like a motel out of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. Ok – maybe not that grim a picture, but certainly your home is the one place you want to conclude a romantically successful evening if you have a date you want to impress.
2. You will spend most of your life at home… not traveling
Seinfeld
Unless you have a job that pays you well enough and gives you ample leave days (not referring to the unemployed, yet wealthy) to make your Instagram profile look cooler and more happening than all the Jones’ you’re trying to keep up with, you will spend approximately 91.8% of your year at home (when not at the office) even though 99% of your Insta profile is from those 10 days in Ladakh… and this includes all the weekend getaways to the hill-stations and your Uncle’s farmhouse. Note: if your neighbour is Kramer, then your neighbour and best friends will find ways to set up camp at your place as well.
3. Everything you once did outside is now at home
Eric Foreman’s Basement in That 70s Show
With Netflix an arm’s-length reach to the remote control, your pizza from Swiggy in less than a jiffy, and Dunzo delivering beer to your doorstep, you and your flatmates are spending more time at home than anybody before the internet ever did. Today, your home is your movie theatre, your restaurant, and your video game arcade All-in-One so you may as well do it up to make it your favourite place – the coolest, most happening place – to be.
4. Hosting friends is making friends
Joey and Chandler’s vs Rachel and Monica’s: Friends
There is a reason why the classic crew of Friends prefer a huddle at Rachel and Monica’s to one at Joey and Chandler’s… possibly because the former is, at the very least… habitable. So, if you’re thinking that your man cave is all you need as a social animal of this world, consider yourself a Neanderthal on the verge of social extinction. There’s nothing like a well-furnished flat with a decently-stocked kitchen for making friends. People need interactions and experiences to make friends and these experiences and memories need places to be made. The question is: your palace or mine?
5. Nobody cares how big your palace is
Kings Landing vs Dorne: Game of Thrones
And they don’t care for your grandmother’s antique silver or your vintage dragon skull either. It’s all about how you furnish your home to be warm and inviting. Plenty of sunlight, ventilation, soft furnishings, cosy furniture are the key ingredients for a luxury pad – not extravagant showpieces. Ask any princess and she’ll tell you that if it’s all uncomfortable furniture and ornate décor, she wants out; otherwise she isn’t budging an inch from her new Dornish abode.
6. At the end of the day, your home is your last refuge
Carrie Bradshaw in Sex and the City
Yours and, if you have a significant other and/ or kids, theirs as well. If you’re going to be spending more than 90% of your time in a single place in any given year, you may as well make that place your place of zen – your own piece of heaven and happiness that you can retreat to after an enervating day at work, when weekend plans have been cancelled, and when you can’t afford a vacation to Europe because you didn’t get that raise this year. So you may as well do it up and deck it out to your own tastes; personalize it, allow your individuality to be reflected by your decorative flair, and let it be the place where you can express your creativity – it could be anything from pretty Christmas lights to a Sholay or Pulp Fiction poster – because, after all, creative expression is therapy. It’s that one corner of the world where you can finally just have some ‘Me’ time so make it worthwhile for yourself and don’t feel bad about spoiling yourself silly.
