When you finally move in with a significant other, it brings you closer in many ways that you probably anticipated and even looked forward to. You're now more than just a romantic unit: you're a united financial front, shelling out together for your rent, insurance, or a new uncomfortable Ikea couch; you're also a social unit, providing your love with a guaranteed emergency contact or date to the office Christmas party for the foreseeable future. But there's another level of togetherness that most of us don't anticipate before moving in: you are now united in your collective grossness.
Once you unpack that last moving box, there's no more room for secrets. No more separate apartment you can slip away to when you want to bleach your mustache or eat something that makes you super-gassy. Your "hiding all my off-putting qualities" phase as a couple has come to a crashing end; you guys have now entered the "do you like the real me (even though I bite my own toenails)?" phase. In rare cases, this grossness will drive you apart; but honestly, if that happens, it's for the best. If you're not ready to deal with someone's chronic ear wax problems, you were probably not all that ready to be totally emotionally committed to them, either.
But more often, your grossness will bring you two even closer together — the fact that you have witnessed each other's grossest habits, have seen each other's grossest underwear, and are still be sexually interested in each other can be the cement that makes your bond permanent.
But just because it's bonding and kinda romantic, doesn't mean it isn't sometimes also revolting as hell. Here are the nine most stomach-turning things about sharing a home with your boo.
1. You Realize That They Also Have Totally Busted Underwear
Oh, you thought you invented wearing saggy underpants that have been stained with so much period blood, it looks like you were using them to polish an antique wooden bookcase? You did not.
In fact, everyone on earth wears incredibly ugly underwear sometimes — and, you may be shocked to find, that "everyone" includes your partner. It seems obvious, and yet somehow, realizing that the person you consider a sexpot also owns undies that look like a saggy diaper is one of the first shocks of shacking up.
2. You See Their Weird Bathroom Trash
The bathroom trash is, indisputably, the most repellant trash in the house, because it is filled with horrible mysteries. Even if the kitchen trash is smelly, you at least know what went in there. But what's going on inside the bathroom trash? What could your s.o. be doing in here alone that would result in the trash being full of cotton balls that are stained slightly blue? Why is the trash can leaking something sticky? How are there 180 Q-tips in here?
You may never find out — but you will get to test the true depths of your love when you knock the bathroom trash over by accident, and have to face down the prospect of picking your partner's visibly snot-stained tissues by hand.
3. You Stop Holding In Farts In Front Of Each Other
Oh, what, like you're going to "go get something in another room" 15 times in a night after you guys get burritos? Holding in farts was cute when you guys were just casually dating, but you're in the big leagues now, champ. Your s.o. knows what you had for dinner now; you and your stomach have nowhere left to hide.
On one hand, it's a relief — you finally get to be comfortable while hanging out! On the other, you are now going to be logging more hours marinating in someone else's farts than you ever dreamed possible.
4. Your Foul Food Preferences Are Revealed
Have you successfully shielded your boo from your love of spray cheese? Well, it all ends now. You'll find that your desire to shove your snack hole full of off-putting foods stuffs eventually outstrips your desire to fool your significant other into thinking that you are a respectable human being.
In the best-case scenario, you can convert them to your spray cheese/dry cocoa powder/canned herring fillet-eating ways, and be terrible together; in the worst-case scenario, you will be asked to eat your gross food stuffs in another room, and brush your teeth before trying to kiss them (and yes, this goes both ways — the love of your life also likes to eat something that makes your skin crawl, which they think you are "insane" for finding objectionable).
5. You Don't Close The Bathroom Door All The Way
Trust me, it's happened at least once, even if you didn't realize it. Your s.o. is just trying to keep the peace by not mentioning it. Living together involves a lot of seeing humiliating things and then not mentioning them in order to keep the peace.
6. You Use Each Other's Grooming Products
Hey, maybe you've never realized you were out of deodorant, then looked at your honey's deodorant sitting on the corner of the sink, then thought, "Well, I put my mouth on their genitals; isn't that technically grosser than using their deodorant?" and gone for it.
If so, good for you. Maybe you're also the queen of England. It's not my business. But don't think for a second that your permanent roommate hasn't done this to you. Oh, and they've probably used your toothbrush.
7. Your House Suddenly Seems Covered In Hair
We're not really cognizant of the amount of our own hair that falls out every day — you're used to whatever amount of drain-clogage that your own head usually produces. But when you add another person's hair to the mix, suddenly it feels like your clothes, your house, and possibly the slice of pizza you're currently eating are festooned with these little suckers.
8. You Have To Face Your Own Disgusting Habits
Do you idly pick at your scalp while watching TV? Do you bite your hangnails in a notably graphic fashion? Do you drink coffee on the toilet in the morning? If you've been single for a chunk of your adult life, you've probably cultivated a whole host of totally foul behaviors like these, which you've been able to keep a secret. So secret that you may have actually forgotten that they are foul. (Hey, if you start every morning for a decade with a toilet-coffee, the people who hit the throne empty-handed start to seem like the real weirdos.)
This delusion about your own yuckiness will come crashing around you, of course, when your significant other moves in, and singles out something you do multiple times a day without even thinking as the worst thing they have ever witnessed in their entire life. Which brings you to the first real conflict of cohabitating life: do you give up your toilet-coffees in the name of love? Do you demand that your lover also love your idiosyncrasies? Or do you just start kind of hiding the cup in your robe? Do you fight the tides of grossness rising all around you, or do you lean (plop?) in?
9. Sometimes, You Both Have To Poop At The Same Time
Even if you're the most classy, fastidious human being on earth, clashing poop schedules are a risk of cohabitating with a single bathroom (if you have two bathrooms, stop reading, because I hate you). Say you guys ate the same takeout even though it smelled kinda suspect, and now both of your stomachs are making the same threatening gurgles. Who gets to experience gastrointestinal distress in the comfort of your home, and who has to try to hold it, or go to Starbucks?
If you can get through a calm and level-headed discussion of who feels more like they're about to poop their pants, guys, you've got a bright (rancid) future together! Good luck, you crazy (sickening) kids!
Images: Phil Norton/Flickr; Giphy (10)
