- My boyfriend and I have been together for three years and used to live together.
- We lived together in an apartment in New York City and a house in Wisconsin.
"Are you coming over to my place for dinner tonight?" It's a not-at-all unusual question to ask a new love interest. However, this is what I find myself asking my boyfriend whom I've been with for three years and lived together for half that time.
Quinn and I first got together in New York City, shuttling back and forth between our one-bedroom apartments before deciding that despite his small kitchen, the location and surprisingly large living room of his made sense for us to share together.
Then COVID-19 hit and we decided to throw all of our belongings into storage and decamp to Wisconsin, where we're both from, to "wait it out."
After spending the first year in a charming-if-dilapidated rented house, I was offered a spot in a local business accelerator. Part of the deal was that it came with complimentary corporate housing. But there was a catch. We would be living in two separate apartments, across the hall from each other.
Ready for a change, but not one that involved going back to New York City, Quinn and I agreed it would be an interesting diversion. Also, we love free rent.
Our apartments are bright and airy
The apartment building, an old ice cream factory, boasts freshly renovated units — bright, airy lofts. They're great, but not for two people working from home and on calls all day long. They're also not ideal for an early riser (me) and a night owl whose weekly Zoom poker games often go late into the night (him).
We originally asked for a single unit with a separate office for the soundproofing and privacy we'd gotten used to in our rental, but those were all taken.
The accelerator people had a solution: "You can just have two apartments."
It's been a month, and we're still figuring out a rhythm.
How we set up our apartments
We put the Peloton in his apartment, so he sleeps at mine and I get up early and tiptoe across the hall to work out.
By the time I'm back and showered, he's waking up. We chat about our schedules while I get dressed.
Then, he heads back across the hall to his apartment for the day. We eat breakfast and lunch apart and follow a schedule for who cooks dinner at "their" place.
So far, it's only awkward when one of us encounters a neighbor while padding across the hall in pajamas and slippers.
The plan, as of now, is to return to New York in the spring of 2022, so we thought tiptoeing back into apartment living would be a good idea. But of course, a newly-built loft with a washer and dryer, dishwasher, and blackout shades that descend with the push of a button is beyond what we'll be able to afford in the city.
In some ways, we've slid back into Single Megan and Single Quinn behavior. I run the dishwasher every night but leave piles of clothes on every available surface. He cooks burgers for lunch that make his apartment smell like a diner for the next 72 hours and picks his hangnails on the couch.
Sometimes I worry the living arrangement has made us too independent, and as a consequence, that this will affect our
Maybe by the time that happens, the world will have righted itself and we'll be back to commuting into offices, seeing each other in the morning, and reuniting at night for dinner. We'll be happy to see one another in our home, not mine or his.