A No-Bedroom Built for Two

I moved in with my now boyfriend after a month and a half of dating.

I'll give you a second to digest that.

You see, I'm used to the reaction received when dishing out this information.
When you tell this to someone, their eyes dilate rapidly as they try to swallow it. The polite ones attempt to quell the shock, rapidly removing their jaws from the hardwood - but in general there is a stunned awe that hits one's listener.

"Oh..." they say, "that's nice!"

It's a kind attempt, but the body language is a noticeable tell.

I am sympathetic to, and not at all offended by this response. Mainly because I was the first one to whom the craziness of this idea had become apparent.

I was at work - after seven or so weeks of dating my boyfriend - when his name popped up on my cell phone.

"Can you meet me at the station after work?" he'd texted, "We need to talk about something."

His slight variation on the classic slugger, "we need to talk" left my occasionally negative mind reeling, my paranoia off like a rocket.

Any girl with a lick of sense and a rom-com under her belt knows what "we need to talk" means - the outcome of what the Daily Mail described as, "the four little words that could kill your marriage."

I'd seen Clueless, and as a result I wasn't.
That said, "we need to talk" was a new ring to my ears.

I braced myself.
Armour was applied.

"We need to talk? I wasn't aware of this theoretically mutual need for talking!"
The internal practice conversations were numerous, mostly escalating to an irrationally defensive level of response.
Intermittently dispersed between practice scenarios were a smattering of self-directed pep talks of the I-am-Woman-Hear-Me-Roar variety.
"I am a confident, independent woman who doesn't need a man to define me!" I told myself, "Someone who doesn't want to be with me is someone I don't want to be with!"
I strategised the chocolate which would be purchased, the break-up songs which would be blasted, the feminist literature that would be read to reconsider him as nothing but an instrument of my oppression.

However, this thoroughly plotted girly cliche was severely derailed when I was, in fact, not broken up with.
In my rapid code-red response, I'd neglected to think that my Spanish boyfriend - for whom English is a second language - likely had no conception of the phrase's customary implication.
In fact, the reality was quite the opposite.

"I've been at your place so much that my landlady wants to room me with the other Spanish girl at the home-stay. For pretty much the same price," he said, "and I was thinking... if I'm going to share a room with a girl, I want it to be my girlfriend."

I didn't have a statement prepped for that one.

Not only had I never lived with a boyfriend before, I'd never lived with anyone.
Just a month into the lease on my "cozy" (by which I mean, fits-in-a-large-suitcase) apartment, I had not prepared mentally - or spatially - for a real estate proposal.

"Look," he said, "there's no pressure... but I need to tell her in a couple hours."

I was at a loss for words.

"What do you think?"

What did I think?
Aside from the sit-com-esque timeline of decision, I thought about my baron bachelorette fridge of diet soda, mustard, and sushi containers.
I thought about the embarrassing collection of cosmetics growing next to my comically large jewelry box.
I thought about the overflowing closet of fashion choices spilling into my bedroom - nay! - bedroom area.
I thought about the plethora of tiny, mortifying habits and mannerism which I would expose within the reality of cohabitation.

We talked, we did the math.
6 weeks, plus two people, plus one shoe-box sized apartment equals... what exactly?
It was an equation that left me wishing for Pythagorean simplicity.

"Sure!"

That's what I decided. I didn't have the certainty of "yes", and yet also lacked the unwillingness of "no".
I wasn't a deep-end leaper. I wasn't a risk taker.
I was an insurance-seeker. I was a helmet-wearer.
"Sure" was my bungee jump.

We decided on a month-long trial period.
In this way we could experiment without the crushing pressure of having no alternatives. If things went Titanic-level wrong, he could jump ship for the life raft of his old place. If things went splendidly, we could continue on-board the Love Boat.

It's important to note that while we were only six weeks in, we had spent exactly zero days apart since our first date. We loved spending time together and getting to know each other. We spent hours upon hours just talking, and considering the quantity of time we'd spent in each other's company, we were pretty well acquainted. That said, there are things you cannot learn about a person until you share a bathroom, a kitchen, and all remaining personal space with them.

The move itself was easy, to say the very least. Having just brought just two suitcases with him to start his new life across the Atlantic, and having acquired little of great size since he'd arrived, the load fit in the back of a mid-sized compact.
One packing session, one drive, the unpacking, and it was done.

The entire experience of The Move and its minimal scope seemed to betray the magnitude of the action upon our lives.
Two people were combining their worlds, embarking on a new journey, choosing to share each and every part of their lives in a space belonging to them both.
Somehow thirty minutes and a Toyota was a little anticlimactic.

But it was done. And he was there.

The creep of messiness was gradual. As my place became more and more our place with each passing day, so too did his things migrate from the suitcases, to the shelves, to the floor.
And the couch.
And wherever my foot was striving to land.

In an apartment where everything had previously coexisted at nearly perfect right angles, the seismic shift in organisational practices - for me - required a briefly medicated adjustment period.

The motto of the apartment became, "where's the remote?" as only one could ever be located at a time, if lucky.
Dishes accumulated at quadruple speed what with eating at home with increasing frequency. That, and my lazy eating-over-the-sink practice being unpalatable to the sensibilities of a Spanish foodie roommate.
Storage space became a tug of war, one which square footage declared neither could truly win.

He was introduced to my craziness and anal-retentive tidying strategies, and I realised that I was bunking with a less than fastidious apartment keeper on this front.
I needed to adjust to the change just as he was so sweetly adapting to my ways as well.

Despite this transition, the compromises of moving in together were completely dwarfed by the fantastic benefits.

Our couple-shopping not only was fun, but produced a fridge containing items that were neither take-out nor condiments.
Working together, chores fell in volume, as did apartment bills - much to the glee of my chequing account.

Some of the most delightful surprises of our merge I never saw coming.

Finding containers of deliciousness my chef boyfriend had made to make sure I had something after work.
The sweet note exchanges left around our tiny abode.
Waking only to realise, having dozed off on the couch, that he'd gingerly removed my glasses, carried me to bed, and tenderly tucked me in.

The best of all was the magnificent fact of him being there.

Formerly nothing-moments during the day, that would have been lost, were filled with our jokes and loving mockery. Seemingly insignificant seconds falling into the cracks gained weight because I was living them with my best friend.

But it wasn't until his trip to Spain, with two weeks of an ocean between us, that I realised how painfully empty the apartment was without him.
The silence cut through me like knife.
The apartment looked so barren - a sterility settling where his clutter normally lived.
I made a few futile attempts at placing random items haphazardly around, recreating his impact, but my attempt to reproduce his footprint was unsuccessful.

I knew with absolutely certainty when he came back, when I was bawling with joy in his arms at the airport, that I had moved in with the perfect person. I knew when my world shifted back into balance, when my heart swelled to the point of bursting, when it was him that felt like home rather than our (albeit flimsy) walls.

He came home to an apartment decorated for his return like it had been attacked by a stalker talented with a glue gun.
It was a disaster zone of boyfriendly debris almost the instant his bags were opened.

But when I stepped on his belt the next morning, impaling my foot with the sabretooth-like cincher in the darkness, I contained my boundless rage with my stifled agony.
I hopped to comically in the darkness to the bathroom, bracing myself on the counter as I caught my breath.
The next day we'd discuss leaving an obstacle-free path for my morning rituals. But in that moment, I savoured the pain radiating through me.

While it stung with the rage of a thousand killer bees (I can roughly estimate), it only resulted due to our collaborative doltishness and chaos. And as ridiculous as it may seem... that was kinda nice.