Walking Disaster

I’ve had a ton of different living situations in my life — four girls in one dorm room that was designed for only two, a house with six girls, a house with two boys, multiple different houses with my brother, an apartment with one other girl, and one guy friend who would stay on our couch each year for three weeks that would inevitably become seven or eight weeks. So I can definitively say that these observations are obviously very general and stereotype-laden, but they’re also steeped in my version of reality.

Confrontation and Gossip

The guys are always so much worse when it comes to problems between each other. They are constantly gossiping about the other one, constantly bitching about all the problems they have with their girlfriend, roommate, or friend, and yet they never say or do anything about it until it’s too late. My biggest fear in the house with my two guy friends was the same as my friend group in seventh grade: the thought that if they’re talking about each other so fucking much, and complaining about each other to this extent, what are they telling each other about me? 

Every time I lived with one or more girls, all it took was two glasses of wine before it was truth-telling time. Big frustrations, might’ve been a tequila night, but almost everything was squashed as soon as it was talked about honestly and openly. Normally without tears too! Go us. Of course, when they do air their issues with each other, the guys are so concerned with not being the dramatic ones that they end up moving past whatever they want to say without a real, meaningful resolution. At the other end of the spectrum, girls will want to dissect why they got frustrated as well, so that not only do their friends know they were upset, but they now know why as well, whether it was asked or not.

Men Tidy — Women Clean

As I type this, my roommate has about four dishes in the sink that have been “soaking” for nearly a week. These were not dishes that he cooked in, by the way, but they’re technically not in the way, so I can’t move them because I am on strike after refusing to become his mother/maid. But when guys have friends over, their version of cleaning up is mainly just putting things out of the way, in cabinets, or throwing away trash. But they won’t give a proper wipe down or load the dishwasher before they’re done for the night. The next day won’t technically have their mess, but the job remains only halfway done. My personal favorite is when I bug him to actually clean and put away his dishes, he’ll put the pans back on the stove? So I’ll come out in the morning to one or two clean pans just chilling on the stove waiting to be used again, instead of sleeping in their cabinet home. 

Girls will clean, but we’re almost incapable of only doing a wipe down; I blame the nesting habits that occur every three weeks, for some unexplained reason. I will start with a disinfecting wipe or something, but it turns into an hour-long deep clean for whatever room I’m casually tidying. I wish I could do something and stop it after a reasonable time, but instead, my too much gene kicks in and I find myself deep cleaning baseboards when I could be sleeping. As soon as I turn on Spotify, I know the game is up and I will not stop until my hands have dried out and I have sweated through a shirt.

Men buy Gadgets, Women buy Goo

If I had a dollar for every time my current roommates sent me a link or came home with random machines and appliances, I’d be able to afford a one-bedroom spot. Seriously, who needs an electronic spray bottle for olive oil?? We have two of them now! We also have two blenders, and a handheld one because he forgot he lent his friend one of the blenders until we got it back. Our new Roomba’s name is Murphy, and I accidentally treat him like a labrador. I was able to talk Inspector Gadget himself out of buying a third ice machine since we already have two AND a freezer. All these appliances, and he rarely uses the dishwasher. Make it make sense! 

Meanwhile, my contribution to the household is that we now have so many different cleaning products that do the exact same thing. Why do we need hardwood floor cleaner, if we already have Pine Sol? Why do we have the paste and the spray for Pink Stuff? When I live with girls, why do we all insist on having two different types of shampoo and conditioner, plus a hair mask? We have so much goo, and sprays and I am at fault for this, yet I still do it! I have wallflowers with essential oils in no less than four separate rooms, but I still buy and light candles all the time. I don’t understand this either. No points awarded, there is too much shit in my house no matter who I live with. Decluttering is my Sisyphean task.

Respect for Other People’s Stuff

This one goes to the guys. Living with men means that none of them will barge into my room while I’m sleeping so they can try on my clothes for an event that isn’t happening for a week. Guys, thankfully, don’t bust into our shared bathroom so they can start their nighttime skincare routine. Granted, I’ve never had one of my girl roommates go full gremlin mode on my Tupperware of leftover spaghetti sauce (not spaghetti, just the sauce) and eat it all while it’s cold before I have the chance to heat it and eat it once. Or at least, I’ve never caught them… However, I’m okay with that considering that kept me from eating more so it helps in the long run. 

My previous girl roommates had no problem whatsoever barging into my room whenever they felt they needed to. It goes without saying that if my male roommates even tried to barge in without knocking, they’d find themselves breathing out of a tube for the following six months, but the point still stands. I’ve had girl roommates sleep in my room for two weeks after a particularly brutal breakup, and come into my bathroom so we can get ready together for a night out because we haven’t seen each other enough lately. Meanwhile, guys don’t spend enough time in the bathroom to have this type of quality time. Although none of the guys ever walked into my room just to fart and leave. Situational irony at its finest.

The Smell

Time for the best segue ever…it smells like ass in my house right now. When I lived with girls it smelled like artificial vanilla or real lavender. We tried to have fresh flowers whenever we could, plus the lemon pledge and grapefruit-scented all-surface cleaner leave everything perfectly clean and smelling fresh. Living with men means that not only do they reuse air fryer filters until they nearly set fire to the kitchen as they disintegrate, but they also are subject entirely to their id, resulting in bizarre attempts to recreate what they see on cooking shows or hear on podcasts. For example, my guy roommates recently attempted to butcher a jackfruit, which left the entire kitchen, and the walls in the hallways, a sticky, resin mess that smelled like rotten bubblegum for over two days. Thankfully, our friend was able to “borrow” sterile alcohol wipes that got rid of the nasty resin that the wannabe Martha Stewart left behind. His cooking has somehow simultaneously taught me nothing, and way too much. Sidenote: he will never out-Martha me. In his fucking dreams. 

Sorry guys, there are no redeeming qualities for the smell of the men who are too comfortable with their questionable hygiene, and that of their friend’s questionable hygiene, resulting in guy’s nights that smell vaguely fungal. In this case, I would suggest recruiting the girlfriend of said roommate and deciding on whether you need two or three of those Bath and Beyond wallflowers in each room since candles are out of the question (those same men can’t be trusted with open flames). Point to the women!

How Things Get Fixed

With guys they actually do, for a time, until the amateur home repairs inevitably fall apart. With girls, it’s a game of chicken to see who will ma’am up and call the landlord or the maintenance crew to fix the leaking sink. Then when they stop by, it’s a whole other process to see who will have to call the more adult adults in their life to find out what follow-up questions should be asked afterwards. Or if you’re like me and too proud to call others, you head to Reddit, where you can feel like a dipshit for not knowing how to turn off the water valves in your kitchen. Whereas, when the in-unit washing machine breaks, your male roommate will fix it for you, without even batting an eye. And then when it turns out he broke it further because he “just assumed he did it right”, you end up secretly using your friends’ laundry machines for almost nine months now because THE MEN WILL FIX IT. This also applies to dryers. And garbage disposals. And blenders. Send help.

It should go without saying that these are all generalizations, but if you hate all the words you just read, my disclaimer is that these are solely based on my own experiences. I offer up my extremely biased advice for those moving out of their house, or moving to a new place since none of us will ever be able to own a home. You’re welcome.