The difference between living with besties vs living with a partner
Unless you still live at home while studying, uni life forces you to live in close quarters with other people. This means share houses or coupling up, each bringing an array of different experiences. There will be many ups and downs, trials and tribulations, exciting, frustrating and memorable moments. These are some differences between the two.
Closet is doubled vs closet is halved
When I moved in with my besties, it was like I hit the jackpot. Not only was I in close proximity with angel goddesses, but my closet was doubled, if not tripled! If I couldn’t find my denim jacket, chances were it was on her floor. If I needed black tights but mine were recently ripped, no dramas, I'd just take hers! Apart from having different shoe sizes (buzzzzzzzzkill) my clothing collection increased substantially overnight.
Moving in with my partner was a completely different story however – I now share one closet with another person. Granted he has fewer clothes than me, the moving in phrase required a huge cull of all my clothes. I was forced to minimalise with the help of an inspiring Japanese tidying book.
Coming home with someone vs coming home to someone
My partner and I run in different friend circles so this might not be true for all, but living with my besties meant that I was always coming home with someone. I always had someone to share an Uber with and there was always someone there to cook up a late-night drunken storm with me before passing out.
Now, I come home to someone. Stumbling through the door (making as much noise as a mouse, obviously) I can drunkenly curl up into my already asleep partner. This also means hungover mornings are met with boyfriend-made coffee in bed – win!
A constant stream of people in the house vs the two of us
Living with my besties meant there were always people in the house. To get to the bathroom you had to walk through the living room and the kitchen, which were usually populated with people. This can get really exhausting. There are times you may want to pee in the middle of the night without having to talk to ten people in the process.
Living with my partner came with quiet and peace. We are always busy, go out a lot and have people over, but it’s never without my knowledge or help organising. Most of the time I come home to one person, and that’s amazing. I can pee in the middle of night and not even need to put a shirt on!
She gets how great my winged eyeliner is vs he doesn’t
Living with my bestie meant unprompted constant support of all my fashion choices. Now I do a lot of prompting.
I would walk out of the bathroom having spent two hours curling my hair and YES GIRL YOU LOOK AMAZZZZZZZINGGGG. Living with my partner, I home toned my hair blonder and was met with “I promise you, it looks alright”. AL-FUCKING-RIGHT. Alright buddy, no sex for you.
Cleaning rosters vs do it or no sex
Living with besties meant divvying up chores and sharing them. Often there would be someone else’s dirty dishes in the sink, socks on the bathroom floor and hair stuck to the shower walls (my boyfriend has a man bun so this applies to both scenarios). This would be a constant point of tension in the house of besties but with my partner, it was clean up your mess or no sex till you did (and it was done almost immediately! Shocker!).
Living with besties and living with a partner are completely different experiences that, for the most part, are both pretty amazing.
Marnie Vinall
Marnie is a Marketing and Media Communications student at Monash University. She loves reading, writing and her huge collection of plant friends.
Image: Girls official Facebook page