… said someone who isn’t interested in having a relationship?

It looks nicer and a nice home that looks cared for is worth it on its own. I find it much easier to relax when things around me are tidy. Not making your bed is no different than leaving everything lying around after you're done using it. If you want to live like that, you do you, no judgement, but I don't.

Right now, I'm lying down on top of my made bed. There are time where lying down is nice, but Id rather not get under the sheets. Maybe I'm old, but resting is different from sleeping.

But if there was someone I trust enough to be in my bedroom, I'm not going to waste my time convincing you that I do not, in fact, sleep in my bed.

This is just a bad faith argument. No one is trying to convince anyone of that they don't sleep in their bed. A fair amount of grooming is performative as is quite a bit of tidying. I, for one, get a sense of calm when I'm tidying things. I don't believe I'm not going to untidy things and I don't live in stress that things need to be tidied. But I'm mindful of it and attend to it when I have a chance.

When I get up from the bed, I may tug on the corner to remove the me sized indentation, but that's it.

I, for one, don't care if you make your bed or not. But I'd have a tough time sharing a bed with someone who doesn't.

I like it to look nice and neat. Mess and disorder puts me on edge. I like the bed made with the pillows fluffed and throw pillows placed in a certain way. And I do feel like it's more comfortable to sleep in a bed that has been made, because the pillows are fluffed and all the sheets are smoothed out and evenly distributed between my husband and me. I do just get in bed and turn over, I don't rearrange anything, and instead of a blanket I have my hubby for knee support :)

I have cats, if I don't pull up the covers then I get to sleep with tiny grains of cat litter.

shameful cleaning ritual is a bit of a harsh descriptor, but hard agree with everything you said.

Unpopular maybe, but I agree with you.

I leave my bedroom in the morning and don't really come back until I am ready to go to bed. So the appearance doesn't matter to me.

I prefer my bedding to be how I left it, not all flat and tucked in.

My partner disagrees, so the bed is usually made by them because even if I do it it's not up to standards and I get up and leave for work earlier anyways.

But I get it. The only reason I do it is to be nice to my partner, I could give two shits personally.

If I had an efficiency apartment or something I might do things differently because it's like, cluttered in the whole living space, but otherwise I think it's a waste of time unless you're trying to impress someone.

Same argument could be made for sweeping/vacuuming the floor or combing your hair. It will just get messy again.

For me making the bed makes things a little nicer and gets me rolling on doing other tasks. First accomplishment of the day and it takes 10 seconds.

Also and maybe more importantly, it will keep dust and spiders and other insects off the sheets I lay on/in. If you've ever got dressed or folded laundry in a sunny room yoh will see how much dust everyday moving around generates. Those dust particles are skin cells (human and animal), bits of fabric, hair, and plastic microparticles since so many clothes are made from plastic.

Keeps the dust off your bed

I think y'all have a fundamental misunderstanding of why beds were 'made' in the first place. Tight sheets prevent vermin from slipping between the sheets and waiting until you climb in to experience nightmare fuel. It's a great thing that this doesn't happen often in our first world experience.. but let things slip a little and this becomes a necessity, not a weird habit.

Making your bed, is not the same chore for everyone. Some people have many layers and pillows on a fully accessorized sleeping platform. Yes it would be a chore to do that daily (personal opinion). And some people have a duvet, in a duvet cover on a mattress with a fitted sheet on it. Very easy to just shake that duvet over the bed and move on. 30 seconds and done. For some people, making the bed means folding up the duvet and leaving it across the foot of the bed so the mattress can air out all day. And then there is this interesting setup from Germany

However, I think the real subject here is... it's no one else's business what happens in your bedroom. Paint it plaid, sleep on a pile of plushies, have orgies, do your taxes in a corner chair, hang all your underwear on pants hangers from a rod suspended from the ceiling. Whatever. Your bedroom, your privacy.

I used to think like this but then at one point I looked at my bed and I can't stand it. It eventually reflects on how you treat the rest of your home and outside as well . If you find a 10 second task infuriating and pointless that's not too far off from thinking mopping , cleaning toilet , ironing clothes are a waste of time as well.

No matter how shitty my day is, at least the bed is made.

Also, the texture of the sheets on your body feels smoother if the bed was made hours before going to bed, than that feeling of untidy sheets. My sleeping position is sideways, the blanket below me, back is cold, feet over the edge, only one leg covered.

I air my bedsheets outside 3 days after changing them, I change them once a week. Also, my bed is for sleeping and the nasty only.

And from personal experience, partners who didn’t make their bed tended to not have their shit together, so I’m kind of biased.

It makes it more comfortable to sleep in.

More comfortable for the cat. She doesn't like it when it's a mess

It is also actually not healthy to make it right after you slept in it.

The ritual of unmaking the bed can help some people, who experience difficulties sleeping, mentally prepare for sleep.

Most of our daily routines are.

I'm on the fence about the popularity of this opinion, so I'll upvote after I respond.

But you missed out in your data gathering. There are other reasons to make a bed, if not daily, at least regularly.

First, my bonafides. Twenty years as a nurse's assistant. That meant making beds and taking care of the people in them was my responsibility.

As such, I not only had to wonder if it was more than just an optics thing, but make sure that if it wasn't, I was following best practices. See, if there were reasons to do it beyond those you listed, it would shift priorities, as well as maybe changing when and how I did the job.

Comfort is only part of it, though it isz a factor when a person can't shift their own linens.

See, those folds of fabric can, and do, apply pressure to skin differently than flat sections. So remaking a patient's bed becomes a necessity. Matter of fact, it becomes necessary to check their linens while performing care, though that's tangential.

Secondary to that is dislodging anything on the sheets. This includes, but is not limited to, particles of dirt, dead skin, lint, items dropped previous to the bed check, and more. That's the factor that matters most for people that can make their own beds. You don't really realize how much stuff is on the sheets just from one night of use unless you make beds regularly.

There's a sub-reason to that as well. Evaluation. While a lot of people do change sheets on a schedule, often timed with laundry day or days, there may be need to change sheets in between times. No way to be aware of that necessity if it's from an unknown cause unless you check the sheets. And there's no better way to check them than the process of making a bed. Smoothing things out allows to to both visually and tactilely examine the condition of the sheets.

Now, I can almost guarantee someone reading this is thinking "but I don't do anything nasty in my sheets". Yes, you do. Promise. Everyone does, they just don't know it. Even climbing in fresh out of the shower and not moving after, you're leaving stuff behind when you climb out again. May take longer to build up, but it's there.

All those little bits you leave behind are food. Food for something. Mites, bacteria, fungi, whatever. So no matter how clean you are, making your bed at least decreases what's left behind.

Making a bed properly does take time. Not a whole lot, and practice makes it faster, but it's more than just throwing the top sheets back in place.

So, I would encourage folks to take the time to at least smooth their sheets out a little before they climb in, if nothing else.

I make the bed to prevent bugs and spiders from crawling into the sheets

I had one of those sleep number mattresses once, they have inflatable air bags inside so they zip open and you can get at all the layers of foam too. If you saw how much moisture gets trapped in there you'd do like I do and turn your covers down for the day so everything can dry and air out.

Making your bed all nice and tight just traps a whole lot of moisture.

Only if you get nothing from it.

This opinion is actuaöly very popular with me.

It is actually generally better to not make your bed, particularly if you have asthma or allergies. Making the bed creates a warm, humid environment in which dust mites and bacteria better thrive.

I sleep in a hammock and so "making my bed" is just "shove all the blankets into hammock so they're off the floor. I'll have to rearrange them over myself when I go to bed, anyway.

Back when I slept in a bed I never made it, either, unless I was expecting company. If they were sleeping over I'd pull out fresh sheets. If we were just hanging out in my room, I'd pull the comforter flat.

Oh, and I never got the hang of flat sheets. I kick them off in the night, unless they're my only blanket.