“We really need to get out of this habit of just throwing things on the floor,” he said, picking up a pair of my carelessly strewn pyjama bottoms.
Oh dear. And so it begins.
Now, I may have flown across the world to experience my first time living with a boy, and living with another couple too makes it all feel a lot less grown up. But nevertheless, the same rules apply to the latest new experience of my twenties.
Weekly eagerly anticipated date nights are now, like, just every evening at the dinner table.
When we can afford date night out (apparently paying rent can put a little dent in the weekly dinner, cinema, drinks, clubbing fund) it’s usually a good chance to have a conversation about serious stuff, like money, or bills, or business plans or the future.
And when you just wanna let it all hang out? Well, you’ve just gotta do what a girls gotta do and hope for the best that you’ll still be loved through every single surprise revelation that you might not be quite as glamorous all the time as you might have been three times a week for evening dates and weekend sleepovers.
On living together: the good, the bad and the ugly.
The good:
- Before the day has even really started, you get to see a face you love, and that’s EVERY DAY!
- You have someone to tell about your night full of crazy dreams without a) judgement, and b) the risk of being labelled as the office ‘most boring storyteller ever’.
- You get to have a sleepover with your best friend every night!
- There’s always someone there to listen to stories about your day.
- There’s always someone there to complain to.
- If you need a cuddle, you’ve got it. And if you really really don’t, that’s generally always fine too.
- You share everything – secrets, in-jokes, tea-making, mutual hatred for the loud clattering of the postman, mutual love for watching hours of your current TV addiction.
- There’s always someone to tell you that you look nice. With the correct prompting, obviously. (I.e. ‘Do I look nice? Insert wisest answer here [____]’)
- If you forget to buy deodorant, there’s always back up.
The bad:
- With mornings can come grumpy grunts and frowns, and that’s before the day has even started.
- Someone might begin to realise how much you enjoy keeping your stuff where you can see it (i.e. all over the floor, desk, chair, bedside table etc..)
- Someone might often complain about the above point by shouting ‘shit on the floor again!’ to which, any guests unaware of the context, are likely to presume that, (unless you have a dog, which we do not) you might have actually done a shit on the floor, again. And that’s never good.
- Someone else’s hair joins yours around the sink.
- You have to clean the bathroom that another human being has used.
- Boys are smelly – will they ALWAYS think farts are hilarious?
- You end up HAVING to share stuff (that incredibly expensive colour restore shampoo has been wasted wash after wash on a man that has never coloured his hair, nor has any desire in restoring it.)
The ugly:
Fights. Silly little bickery ‘can we just stop and listen to ourselves?!’ fights about mess and washing and cleaning and doing dishes and mattress toppers and early morning alarms that NEVER STOP and lights being left on and eating all the food shop on delivery day and who used the last of the milk and where did all the biscuits go and all the other things you’ve been fighting with your parents about for years, only to now realise, this shit never ends!
Like, ever.
But when it comes down to it, even through all the brand new grown up stuff that I never once dreamt I’d ever have to deal with, well it’s really very nice, this living together thing.
Snatched kisses in the kitchen, the LAUGHS that bubble out post-fight when we realise we’re arguing over whether to buy a fitted or a flat sheet, always thinking about someone else and knowing that they’re always thinking about you (sure, apart from when the football’s on, or being discussed, or being played, or being mentioned, or just existing), the sharing of the smallest most boring things like taking in the shopping or preparing a meal or doing the dishes feeling like you’re part of a mini team as you tackle this new grown up world together.
Those giggles, and that getting each other, and the comfort, and the listening and the believing in each other’s goals and plans and dreams. It all wins. The good stuff wins!
But the farts really do have to stop.
You’re battling the twenties too, huh? The best way to win is to face it together! Get in touch: littleredfrench@gmail.com
Or leave me a comment below
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