…and the living (together) is easy…. (or something)

Well its been an eventful week at P & C Headquarters (We don’t actually have a Headquarters. Wish we did. Crumpet can we get a headquarters please?) Me and Crumpet have found ourselves talking about boys and relationships even more so than usual, we had a right old panic about #DMgate2010 (OMG What if boys can read our ‘private’ twitter messages?) One of the questions that came up in our furious DMing was about couples living together. The Pro’s and Con’s, We’ve both done it, so would we do it again? Do you do it? Would you do it? C’Mon lets all have a nice discussion about it….

CRUMPET

I’m not too sure where to start with this. I’ve lived with 2 boyfriends now… both brought on by less-than-typical situations. Although what’s typical? I’m the oldest sibling so have only had older cousins to look up to… all who followed ‘the formula’ – go to uni, meet ‘suitable’ other half, graduate, boring job, boring proposal, boring-but-lovely wedding, boring house in the boring suburbs, cute kids. Done. (All LONG before they’d reached MY age, which everyone LOVES to point out. Idiots). Maybe that’s typical. Maybe it’s typical that you meet the love of your life, spend a year or two together… dating… getting to know each other… then decide to start a Proper Life together by moving in… getting engaged…? I don’t know. Just blablabla’ing away here.

ANYWAY. I don’t do things the ‘typical’ way. As you probably know by now.

So when I was 19, (I think), I moved in with a guy. I’d already moved uni AND city to be nearer to him, and was obviously spending enough time at his for my own rent to quickly become a massive waste of money. It was never awesome. It was never lovely. There were none of those dreamy lie ins or breakfasts-in-bed or anything gorgeous like that. Says more about the relationship than anything else I spose but it was all gross-bathrooms and finding his socks in the sofa n’all that shit. RABBISH. Needless to say, if the relationship itself isn’t SuperAwesomePerfecto, then living together isn’t going to help or save it. It’s just going to present you with more things to get aggro over. Moving OUT was equally awful, and involved a lot of hurried shoving of things in to binliners (me) and crying over who gets the plants (him).

Aside from the difficulties and all the other crap I always seem to end up writing about The Australian, we had a great time living together, generally. It’s been hard thinking how to write about this without feeling a bit sad (RIDICULOUS. I’m OVER him. It’s pure nostalgia. Nostalgia for my bird paintings mainly. He gave them to CHARITY. What a prick). Anyway yes. We had only spent a grand total of TWENTY days in each others company as a couple when we decided we’d rent a beautiful flat together by the sea. I loved living in Brighton, and we made a cute home even cuter by filling it with junk, records, amazing smells from crazy cooking adventures… THIS is how you do Living Together. The Australian was never messy. Never a slob. He was thoughtful and our home was always full of fresh flowers, flea market treasure….  our Melbourne flat was bigger but worked in the same way. We DID all those gorgeous things you dream of like long wonderful lie ins, breakfast in bed, dvd’s in bed… there really wasn’t a day I woke up in our home and wasn’t happy to be there with him. (Until I wasn’t. Obviously. But when things were good between us as a couple, things were good with us living together). Obviously when the relationship started to go tits up so did the cohabitation… just like before. Just like always.

My best friend in the world married young, whilst traveling… they were married and moving to London before even having lived together. They’d gone from uni, to engagement, to traveling… that’s a massive jump, right? Obviously they were in love. They were enviable. They are divorced. I love her dearly – and wouldn’t judge or expect her to regret a single moment of ANY of that… I just thought it was worth mentioning as I think her experience probably forms some of my current opinion on this.

I’ve lost my way a bit here. I don’t know what the winning formula here is. I know I haven’t found it in either of those situations. I’m so critical of the examples I’ve been set (as mentioned earlier) but there they all are… in their boring suburban lives… being happy. I live with a group of wonderful friends and am genuinely content having my own bit of place… despite it being jam crammed with 3 previous flat’s worth of ‘stuff’ and my parent’s garage containing rather a lot of my furniture… but I’m not in a hurry to move in with any future/whatever boyfriend… well I say that now. I just mean I’d be so wary now because I’ve done it. And I’ve done it well, I’ve done it badly, I’ve done it well then fucked it up and I’ve done it badly and clung to it… I spose it’s the same old “I don’t know what I want but I know when I find it” blablabalbla…. (EVERY post is ending like this at the moment innit?)

YAY I GOT US A NEW BIRD PAINTING!

Whilst catching up with a friend recently, I asked how things with his girlfriend were going. He’s always kinda vague about her but he said things had been a bit *did the shakey hand wavey thing*. He said “I think we’ll either break up or move in together”. I genuinely couldn’t believe anyone would consider those two options at the same time. Was in even MORE disbelief when they DID move in together… but thought best not to judge. Sometimes it IS the making of a couple. And just the thing to bring you closer in every way. Know for a fact he’s been a bit of an idiot and cheated on her a bit… SINCE they’ve moved in together…

It’s just not an answer or a way to fix a relationship. But I spose maybe one day I’ll meet someone LOVELY who ISNT a shit and who ISNT from another country or who DOESNT hide his socks between the sofa cushions… and maybe we’ll hang up my bird paintings together and he’ll like them and buy me flowers. That’d probably be ace.

PANDA

Disclaimer: All views expressed by me (Panda) are subject to change (Whenever i feel like it)

I approach this whole issue from two very different sides there’s the me that’s just me and then there’s the me that’s me AND the two Mini Pandas. See so when i think about whether or not a couple should live together I’m thinking about it from the point of, would i want somebody to live with me AND the small people. But you know what, at this point in time even if i was single with no children I’m still not sure I’m keen on the thought of a boy being in the same house as me ALL THE FACKING TIME.

The thing is you meet someone and you get that sparky thing and that OH MY GOD I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU, YOU ARE AMAZING thing and its brilliant. You can’t get enough of each other and being apart is crap so you both think, Lets bloody move in together that’s a good idea. So you do and its all fun and exciting and Friday Big Shops, and Long Sunday Lay ins. But you know what you also get, a Monday and a Tuesday and a Wednesday (You get where I’m going with this right?)

The thing that made it so exciting in the beginning was the fact you dated and missed each other when you were apart and did your own thing so you still had something to talk about when you were together. Then that’s replaced with night after night of watching telly, and picking up socks and walking in the bathroom after one of you has taken a shit. There is nothing exciting or romantic about that AT ALL.

So surely to keep that spark alive, it makes sense that you always live apart…Eternally date each other… Dont Tim Burton and that Helena Lady have separate quarters in their massive fuck off castle? I’m thinking they’re totally onto something there.

Mmmmm steak...

I like living alone (Well not alone, but with no other adult) I like that I’m queen of my hive, that i can have as many creepy china cats as i want. That i can leave my skanky knickers on the bathroom floor. I can eat steak with my fingers, I can spend a spaztastic amount of time on the internet and most importantly i can sleep diagonally across my king size bed (Dont know why, i just always wake up like that)

But, DAG NAM IT, I knew there’d be a but… I’m drawing this slightly cynical bitter conclusion from my own experience of living with boys. And as sad as this may be I’m a fucking sucker for a happy ending. And i guess if pushed i could imagine that if you were with someone who you really REALLY liked blah blah blah then waking up with them every single day might not seem such a scary idea at all… (Still think separate wings of a castle is a fucking winner though.)