I write this lying on my only piece of furniture so far, an oxblood chesterfield sofa. I’m in a new flat, and opposite me is the pile. It extends across two-thirds of the wall; the last third is occupied by an electric radiator that I have diligently kept unblocked.

The base of the pile comprises four large boxes, six smaller ones and a few open suitcases. Miscellaneous jetsam scattered on top brings the stack to around five foot high. Among the items visible are a folded metal clothes horse, a red paisley dressing gown and peach-coloured flip-flops I begrudgingly acquired when a neighbour below me in my last flat left a note suggesting I wear a pair to cushion my footsteps. I am not convinced the slap of rubber against wood is quieter than bare feet, and I am not a stomper anyway (I used to alarm flatmates by appearing without auditory warning), but I’ve held onto the flip-flops with the stubbornness attached to having paid for something I didn’t want or need.

Deeper in the pile is another pair of flip-flops I subsequently got for free anyway: green ones I wore while detained in Israeli prison after being abducted from the flotilla to Gaza last October. Somewhere there, too, is the grey jumper and sweatpants they had us wear. I neither want to throw these things out, nor to look at them.

Elsewhere are more mundane objects bearing their own forcefield of don’t-go-there. There are books by people I used to sleep with, letters I can’t make myself open, old journals I can’t stand to read.

Attachment theory is simplistic, but, insofar as various styles exist, mine is probably avoidant. Sometimes I internally contest this on what seems to be a rational basis: would an avoidant know they’re avoidant? But probably the answer is yes, if this knowledge functions to further the avoidance. ‘I’m not dealing with the pile of things yet because I am emotionally avoidant,’ I think, and then I go back to whatever else I was doing.

Consciously I understand my refusal to do anything about the pile is exhaustion. This is my fourth time moving flat in five years. I have better things to do. And I reasoned that surely I could forage from the scrapheap as and when things became essential, and in this way I’d unpack organically over time. But this strategy failed to account for my sheer determination to find workarounds: rather than locating my cutlery in one of the boxes, this evening I ate rice by scooping it out of the bowl with an espresso cup. My takeaway from this was that everything was fine and that I still didn’t need to do anything about the pile.

Some of it, if you pressed me, may be about a broader resistance to domesticity. I like that the kitchen in the apartment is tiny; I like that I can choose to buy a massive desk and think of a dining table as an afterthought, if I get one at all. I enjoy hosting, and if introversion and extroversion are useful distinctions – and I would say they’re about as useful as attachment theory – then I am most likely an extrovert, but I am also a control freak with no nurturing instinct. That is, I enjoy being around people when I can set my own parameters and when I’m not expected to do anything for them that I wouldn’t for myself. I’ve already had friends over, pile notwithstanding, and even before the sofa arrived; the sort of people I get along with don’t mind drinking wine cross-legged while my worldly possessions teeter above them.

It’s different when men do this. With them, we read this behaviour as helplessness, learned or genuine: he sleeps on a mattress on the ground because he doesn’t realise you’re meant to get a bed, or because he assumes some woman will eventually do it for him. I cannot claim ignorance. I know precisely what is required: tackle the pile. It’s in my own interest. I can only suspect, therefore, that I prefer to believe I’m too bohemian to care – and that this self-image is one I’m willing to pay for in many more nights, potentially, of eating rice from an espresso cup.