I've seen men do a lot of things. I've seen them pee in a frat house elevator while blackout drunk. I've seen them take a bite of a grilled cheese, then stuff the plate under their bed. Hell, I've even seen them leave an assemblage of pubes all over a toilet seat when they KNEW a woman would be using the bathroom (me, I'm the woman).
But I've never seen anything like the TikTok that 25-year-old Isabel Tessa Timerman uploaded from her situationship's bedroom. In the video, you can see that the (male) situationship has been using T-shirts instead of pillowcases on his pillows:
I'll let the comments on the video speak for my reaction to this monstrosity:
I needed to hear more about this situation, so I reached out to Isabel — the NYC-based model and writer — to get some background on what she refers to as "pillowcase/shirt-gate." Her story with "shirt man" began where most cursed relationships between 20-something-year-old New Yorkers do; at a bar on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. "He was standing in a corner alone, and instantly, I was intrigued," she told BuzzFeed. "He looked straight out of a '90s Thrasher ad. Super grunge, dark hair, tattoos. We went on a few dates, and eventually, I went back to his apartment, where I was confronted with pillowcase/shirt-gate. At first, I was speechless, but then I thought to myself, okay, this is stellar content."
"I’m drawn to these types of guys. The sloppy bad boy rockstars. They make for great characters. I find them way more fascinating than the boring finance type. I think knowing I can’t bring them home is sort of a mechanism to avoid getting hurt. I take them less seriously, and when it doesn’t work out, I’m not as disappointed. I don’t know if that makes sense."
When asked if she feels this situation reflects the general state of men, she said, "Men can be super lazy, so I don’t know if they really give a shit about things like having bedsheets or pillowcases. It seems absurd, but it’s totally true. They know they can get girls either way, because girls often look past certain behaviors when they’ve already fallen for someone."
After looking at Isabel's TikTok profile, I realized I had seen a ton of her videos before. She makes painfully relatable content about dating, toxic relationships, and the idiosyncrasies of being a woman. Here are some of my faves:
I was curious about what inspired her to make these videos. She said, "When I was going through a horrible breakup in 2021, I was constantly being called the 'crazy psycho ex.' I got a lot of inspiration from that experience. Expressing myself on TikTok made me feel less alone. I enjoyed taking my misery and turning it into comedy. When my videos started going viral, I realized that I’m actually not 'crazy.' I’m actually pretty normal. It’s very rare that people, especially women, own up to these behaviors. There’s a lot of shame in them. But once you do, it’s a very liberating feeling."
