I am in love with my flatmate. Even as first-world problems go, I appreciate that this is not exactly catastrophic. My situation is up there with “Oh dear, Uber has got a surge on,” or “I’m in the mood for a Polynesian tonight, but my favourite one isn’t open.” Still, I am in love. And I need to move out.
I should have seen it coming. I’d been nursing a crush on T for years. I fancied him from the moment we met, although at first it was only in the same low-level way I fancy all slightly odd, blond men. Then T had a room going, and I needed a place, so me and my two suitcases moved in. (Because all my stuff is still in storage, while I pretend that one day, I might actually buy a flat.)
We celebrated by going out dancing at a Japanese bar, falling home, collapsing into my bed, then waking up spooning platonically.
After that, the tension was gone. So now, we wander around the flat in our underwear, nursing problems and hangovers, talking about his girlfriends while I epilate my legs.
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Because we’re both at home all day, we invent games. We see who can grab the most cappuccinos from Waitrose. We take mini-breaks funded by Airbnb-ing the flat, spending weekends in the country, drinking romantic, fireside G&Ts.
“I’d been nursing a crush on T for years. I fancied him from the moment we met. Then he had a room going, and I needed a place, so me and my two suitcases moved in”
In London we get into a rhythm — wake up at 11am, eggs, tea, write, procrastinate. I make facemasks from yoghurt and oats, which we both wear while doing BuzzFeed quizzes. He buys me Benjamin Constant’s The Red Notebook, and a lamp, so I can read it in bed. I buy him socks featuring Monet’s water lilies. We go out separately, then collapse into the same bed. But never like that.
Then the arguments begin, passive-aggressive fights about how little tidying up I do, and how many girls he brings back. Rows about how he sends pestering texts asking when I’ll be home. On Sundays, he reads out my articles, critiquing them loudly, until I scream that they would be better if he wasn’t always around.
And I realise that I’ve fallen in love with him. But I can no longer stand him. We’ve ended up in the same sexless marriage — one that is archetypal of Generation Rent — that I seem to create with all flatmates, renting well into our adult lives, long after our parents had married and had kids.
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I start searching for a flat to buy with a renewed sense of urgency. It’s time to grow up. If I don’t try now, it might never happen, I think. Then, I find myself wondering, am I ready for it?
How old is too old to have flatmates? Will there be a time when I’m 50 and still living with my best mates, chuckling about the losers who settled down and secretly wondering if we should have joined their ranks? Will there come a time when I don’t have people crashing into my flat at 3am? When I’ll be able to buy milk and it will still be there in the fridge when I get home? Or have a party without getting told off?
The problem with this moving between flatmates all the time is that if I keep doing it, I’ll run out of friends.
I lie in bed with T, checking the Rightmove app, emailing estate agencies to set up viewings. I make secret plans to be a boring grown-up. And I think of T and how much I’ll miss him. And I think, I cannot wait to move out.
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