Gorilla in the Kitchen

Lovers shouldn’t live together

Katharine Hepburn once astutely observed:

“Sometimes I wonder if men and women really suit each other. Perhaps they should live next door and just visit now and then.”

I had an Upper West Side girlfriend who would agree. I remember her sauntering into her kitchen and finding me standing there, teetering cup of coffee in one hand, the other opening her refrigerator out of which food was tumbling. On her counter were puddles of spilled milk, trails of coffee grounds, and random pieces of silverware, dirty cups, a soiled napkin.

I felt to her like a gorilla that had just escaped from the Bronx Zoo, somehow got into her apartment, and had made himself at home. Her cringe was palpable, my sheer existence violative. I was a hurricane of high entropy, an agent of armageddon, and whether I intended to or not was an existential threat to the clean, neat, calm home she’d created for herself.

Our beauty and the beast dynamic fueled a very different experience in her bedroom, but everywhere else drove her nuts. Whether she was dabbing food off my chin in restaurants, kicking me under the table at social gatherings, or laughing at my dorky white ankle socks, I was a rough hewn block of testosterone-laced marble, and she kept trying to polish me.

We eventually split, in retrospect both of us acknowledging that for things to work long term I had to calm down, and she had to crazy up. We also knew that even if we decided to go for it, living together would be a bad idea. Habits and hygiene aside, she needed her space, and I needed mine. To Hepburn’s point, visiting now and then would be the best we could do.

For many reasons our society conditions lovers to believe that living together is the natural culmination of a relationship. Seeing marriage through the traditional lens of creating a secure and economically feasible home for children reinforces that belief, but begs the question of whether or not any romantic couple — straight or gay or whatever — must cohabitate.

Living together works for many ostensibly happy couples, more power to them. Yet the ad hoc and unnecessary move puts pressure on people, and forces them to continuously make compromises about some of the most basic, ingrained, and stubborn behaviors. The result is often squabbling over minutiae, the tinier the infraction the greater the frustration.

Even the most remedial cost-benefit analysis of cohabitation reveals a negative return on investment. Describing love and romance in economic terms might sound crass, but quantifying what most consider the unquantifiable leaves fewer critical life decisions to chance, and infuses them with the benefit of hard learned lessons and proven best practices.

Not so fast, you’re likely thinking, the most obvious and immediate benefit of living together is saving money on housing. Demonstrably true — while reducing your rent, mortgage, and other expenses is also the most tempting and dangerous lure. Are you moving in together because that’s the next step in your relationship, or because you want to save money?

Whether motivated by effervescing love, financial expedience, blending families, or all of the above, don’t do it. Keep the sensuous fire alive, avoid getting on each other’s nerves, and take the pressure off by living apart. Listen to KH — visiting now and then will keep the things you can’t stand about each other zipped up, and your relationship will stay fresher, longer.