The art of living with boys is one such unique situation many females wouldn’t dare to tango with. It is true; girls come with some baggage, as Kate Hudson proved to the world when she romantically dumped tampons, hairspray, and the infamous nickname Princess Sophia on the doting Matthew McConaughey in How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, but boys come with a whole other set of rules. I’m not saying that your average male roommate is always going to be some hyper-masculine protein addict, but then again, that’s all dependent on the luck of the draw. The boy I live with is outnumbered. Three girls, one boy, one roof, four happy roommates. He is sweet, respectful, and to say the least, understanding. As a part of the majority, we girls have been forced to alter our living norms to coincide with the tendencies of our male housemate. Walking around in underwear, blasting Taylor Swift, and hosting wine Wednesday’s with the girls is something that we have had to reconsider.
The first few things that come to mind when mulling over the idea of living with a boy are: the laws and regulations of the bathroom, grocery shopping, and thank God we now have a permanent pair of muscles to open the pickle jar. Luckily in our situation, our boy roommate was blessed with the privacy of his own bathroom. So in essence, there lies no fear in peeing with the door open or leaving the beautiful pink box of tampons out on display. On the other hand, our boy roomie is free to shave with no regard for those flakey little hairs that would “powder” our powder room and fuel the fire for some angry women. So as it stands, the bathroom situation in our house is quite peaceful.
Food shopping is a whole other cup of tea. As girls, we like to try and maintain a nice figure, so naturally the items in our cart at the grocery store is a direct reflection of that. Since we like to play fair, we suggested to our boy roommate that he should come with us on our grocery runs so that he’s able to get whatever he wants. On one of the many trips to Costco, he really got a good feel for our sense of humor, and also experienced first hand what separates the boys from the girls. We left the house at about 5:00 pm and decided to stop at Dunkin’ Donuts on our way to the Waterfront. Our boy roommate sat in the back seat watching the traffic fight noisily outside, and rode silently with an innocent yet serious reflection of his demeanor sprawled across his face. As we lowered the music and approached the drive-through window, one of my roommates in a fit of giggles cheered, “Ian! This is dinner!” and we all died laughing (even though she was very, very serious).
Our lives have not changed dramatically since the addition of our boy roommate, and we don’t have to make serious sacrifices because of him, however there is a level of mutual respect that is crucial to our happy home. I can honestly say that I enjoy living in a sexually diverse house. I feel safe when he’s home, there is always a brotherly figure to hang out with, and when I feel like being a guys-girl instead of a girls-girl, I can easily kick it with my boy roommate and just relax. We have formed a unique relationship that I know wouldn’t have blossomed if our living circumstances were different. And just for the record: boys are better at opening things, they don’t particularly like to take out the trash (despite the masculine ties to that chore), and they absolutely do hate tampons.