Some students are far more serious about relationships than I was during university. I dated a Laurier student (traitor!), and a DJ — neither very serious.
So for those of you who are waiting to graduate before getting too serious, you have yet to experience the first time living with your significant other.
I have been living with my boyfriend for over a month now and I have plenty of wisdom to pass along.
Before you move in together, think carefully about what role you want to play in the new roommate aspect of your relationship. Will you be the ruler of your new home or will you be a subject? If you both move in wanting to be the ruler, just stand your ground. The true ruler will emerge victorious.
Once you’ve lived with your significant other for a while, it’s easy to start making a list of all the things that annoy the living daylight out of you. At least that’s what I found myself doing on a regular basis: the classic toilet seat debacle, beard whiskers everywhere, 20 degrees versus 23 (if you’re cold, put more clothes on, am I right?).
The important thing to do when your blood starts boiling after you find the 10,264th sock under the bed is to stop and truly think about all the good things your significant other does.
For some reason, our brains focus on annoying things and blow past the awesome things. I’m so lucky to have a boyfriend that does all the things I hate: taking out the garbage and recycling, vacuuming, shoveling snow from the walkway, and sometimes even cleaning the snow off my car before I have to leave for work in the morning.
Something you need to keep an eye on when approaching your third month is the loneliness paradox (a theory of my own creation). For two months straight, you struggle to spend any time alone. You thank the lord when your boyfriend decides to play video games in the living room for a couple hours because it means you can finally watch a couple more episode of Party of Five on Netflix before being forced to watch a show you both like (probably something awful because he has terrible taste in television) before going to bed.
When the loneliness paradox starts taking effect, everything changes. Suddenly, you’re asking your significant other to stand outside the washroom while you shower so you don’t have to be alone.
Ultimately, it’s not so hard to make the big move, as long as you keep an open mind about making some big changes in your life (or pretending to, at least. I will never like wrestling. Not ever).
Oh and one more thing. No matter how good of an idea you think it is to get a pet in the first year, don’t do it.
