What It’s Like When A Lesbian Couple Decides To Move In Together

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I’m not usually one to promote stereotypes — they irk me to the point of hysteria and are, most of the time, false.

For example, not all lesbians play softball — heck, I probably couldn’t hit a softball correctly if it was placed on a T in front of me — and they certainly don’t all try to “convert” straight girls and chop all their hair off and pierce their eyebrows (oh wait, I actually did those last two things; college was an interesting time for me).

But in all seriousness, there is one category of lesbian stereotype that I begrudgingly fall into, and that is…the U-Hauling.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with this LGBTQQI (did I miss any letters?) community cultural reference, there is a joke that says, “What does a lesbian bring to a second date?” Answer: “A U-Haul.” 

Yes, often — but not always — female-female relationships tend to move pretty quickly.

Take it from someone who shacked up with their girlfriend exactly 8 months after our meet-cute. (The Holiday reference, anyone? Jude Law? Cameron Diaz? Christmas? No? Okay. Moving on.)

The first thing that will happen when you decide to move in with your girlfriend actually comes before that whole big decision takes place. Yes, this is the part where you two are basically already living together, but your name just isn’t on her lease yet. Weekends are spent at each others’ place and you start staying over even on the weeknights — even though you have work the next morning and you promised you would try to be productive human beings during the week. Couples often make these unrealistic promises to themselves, as if to try to pretend that they won’t totally let their falling-in-love get in the way of their productivity in other parts of life. In fact, my girlfriend just Gchatted me as I’m writing this: “I’m not drinking at all this weekend,” but she and I both know that’s a bold-faced lie because on Saturday night we’ll probably be dancing around our kitchen cooking in our crockpot and finishing off a bottle of wine together. But I digress.

If you’re in the right kind of relationship, you will still support each other in pursuing your goals, but sometimes it’s going to be hard to focus when you’re so busy being obsessed with spending time together. Which brings me back to the staying over all the time — especially if you guys are in a LDR, which, a lot of couples are because #lackofqualitylesbians in your immediate area and stuff.

Anyway, after listening to the same playlist over and over on your drives to her place and constantly dreaming about sharing an apartment, you two will decide to move in together.

Now it’s time to be prepared from the skepticism of friends. Sure, deep down they will be happy for you for because it’s hard not to be happy for someone who is glowing, but at some level, they will wonder if you’re making a massive mistake. They will either outright say this to you, discreetly ask you if you’re sure you two are ready, or will only give you praise and support while secretly crossing their fingers this doesn’t turn into a disaster for you — but only because they truly love and care about you and don’t want this newfound glowing happiness to be ripped away.

Now it’s time to look for an apartment. (This part does not apply to people who move into their girlfriend’s already established apartment.) You will pour over Craigslist together. Every day you will send each other about 17 emails with links to affordable apartments. You will weigh the pros and cons of each one and begin contacting the landlords.

When you show up to the one bedroom apartment that is literally all you two can afford right now, the landlord/realtor will give you a strange look. “You know this is a one bedroom, right?” he/she will ask.

“Yeah…” you both answer simultaneously. You don’t feel like explaining that you’ll be spending all your nights intertwined in the same bed in the same room (or kicking each other and fighting for space in the same bed in the same room, either way) because #wakeupandsmell2014, there are such things as lesbian couples.

Once I actually had a landlord contemplate all the ways we could possibly set up two beds in the same bedroom. He must have thought we were just best friends who really, really couldn’t afford a two bedroom. My girlfriend and I just kind of stood there trying not to laugh, not wanting to point out that we totally didn’t need two beds, hence why we showed up to look at this one bedroom apartment. But sometimes you have to be careful about who you mention your sexuality to for fear of being stared at as if this person is mentally jerking it to the thought of you two in bed together. Which is possibly even more annoying than those extremely awkward jolted reactions where you feel as though the person has never before heard of two women being in love.

Anyway, you finally find the apartment that’s going to be your first together, sign the lease, and pack up all your stuff to transport it to your new home.

You unpack all your stuff, have small arguments about where everything should go and how to set it all up, and then settle into the glorious we-just-moved-in-together honeymoon phase where you actually wake up smiling every day because she is the first thing you get to see.

This phase is blissful euphoria, and it is everything you imagined it would be and more…

…until the reality of living together comes with its inevitable disagreements, realizations about each other, and the excruciating problem of two females PMSing at the same time (if you’re lucky enough to have already synched up during your practically-living-together-but-not-officially-living-together phase.

But that, well, that is where the real beauty of living together starts — the part where your depth of knowledge about each others’ crazy little habits and tendencies is heightened and your relationship can either crash and burn (insert “I told you so” thoughts from aforementioned friends here) or grow even deeper and more solid.

And if you’re lucky enough to experience the latter, well, that is what makes your crazy quick decision to move in together so incredible — because you trusted your intuition and dove in head first — and as they say, no risk, no reward.

(And oh, what lovely rewards they are.)