“Are you crazy? You are voluntarily living with three guys?”
This is the reaction I get from most people when I tell them I had moved in with three male roommates. I do not understand why people are so shocked. After all, I am living with three guys, not a pack of wild animals.
To be completely honest, I originally decided to move into the house strictly for the sake of convenience. I would much rather walk a couple of blocks to school than drive all the way from Rancho Cucamonga, as I had been previously doing. Plus, I jumped at the chance to experience a taste of freedom by living on my own for the semester. I never really considered the fact that I would be the only female in a male-dominated household.
Fortunately, my life with the guys has not been all that eventful, although there has been some scary moments. For example, the second day I was living there, I made the discovery that there were absolutely no paper towels or napkins anywhere in the house. I felt fortunate that the bathroom was stocked with toilet paper, which I hear is often a scarcity at many guys’ houses.
Of course, the guys also have a different definition of clean than I do. Whereas I prefer my bathroom sink to be sparkling and my kitchen counter to be free from crumbs and spills, the guys seem to be satisfied as long as nothing has taken up residence in the area. Unless, of course, we are talking about the refrigerator. I am afraid to know what variety of organisms live in there.
The decor in the house is also rather interesting. Compared to the apartments of some of my female friends, there is no question that males have dominated the house for quite some time. The furniture is worn and mismatched, postcards line the walls of the family room and kitchen, and odd little knick-knacks are placed haphazardly around the house.
We even have a life-sized, full-color Batman cutout in the hallway. Pretty impressive, if you ask me.
Personally, I like to take showers by myself, and not in the company of slugs. For some reason, which is probably better attributed to the constant dampness of our shower than to our cleaning habits, slugs are attracted to the shower area. During the day, the bathroom is slug-free, but sometime during the night, they invade. As it happens, I am usually the first one in the shower in the morning and am constantly faced with the problem. It has become my morning ritual to check the shower closely for slugs and then dispose of them before stepping in. When I once complained about the problem, I was told, “Just ignore them. They will go away by themselves.” No thanks.
Most of the weird occurrences in the house have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that my roommates are guys. One night, I was sitting in my bedroom at my computer, when a strange dog just wandered into my room. I had only been living there for a couple of days, but I was pretty sure that I would have known if we had a dog. As it turns out, the dog belongs to a neighbor who comes over to visit often and brings the dog with him. Until I figured this fact out, I was a tad bit confused.
Do not get me wrong. Living with three guys is not really bad at all, and I have nothing to complain about. For me, the benefits of the situation greatly outweigh the drawbacks. If nothing else, the guys have taught me to loosen up and to be more comfortable with myself. When I first moved in, I was shy and pretty much stayed in my room, which is no longer the case. Not that I now parade around the house in my pajamas, but I think I have reached a happy medium. Plus, there is always the opportunity for late night talks with the guys. I have had a couple of philosophical conversations in the middle of the night.
Now that the semester draws to a close, so does my time living in the house. While I look forward to returning home to real food and a slug-free shower, I do not regret any of the time I spent living with the guys. For all you who have wondered, no, I am not in the least bit crazy.
