Choosing who to live with, having known everyone in your halls for approximately 8 weeks, is a minefield we all have to try and manoeuvre. One of the hardest questions amounts to the battle of the sexes. Many girls are instinctively drawn to live with each other, but could living with boys be the better option?
1. Limited PMT and passive aggressive tendenciesLet’s face it, girls’ hormones can run riot with our rationality at times. Although boys can have these phases (hungry/tired/sexually frustrated) they’re usually much more up front about them. If they want someone to do their washing up they’ll let you know rather than leaving the dreaded passive aggressive post-it notes.
2. They’re tidier than you thinkContrary to the popular stereotype of boys being unkempt creatures, my experience has been that actually they’re pretty good at the whole personal hygiene game. In fact, better than girls in many cases. Whereas many a female room will be covered in clothes you decided not to wear 3 nights ago and half a weeks’ worth of make-up wipes, the standard boy’s room is normally pretty tidy and organised.
3. They don’t get enough credit for houseworkMostly because it’s not something they particularly want to be bragging about, whereas girls will often make every visitor take note of how sparking the hob was because you’re such a domestic goddess. Boys, on the whole, aren’t afraid to do a little housework in at least equal measures to their female companions.
4. They’re generally pretty chilled out about most thingsOn the whole, there’s not all too much that rattles their cages. Borrowing a drop of milk for a cup of tea or leaving your washing in the machine for a couple of days might come up on their radar but they’re unlikely to hold a grudge about it for more than a few minutes.
Obviously living with boys means you might have to sacrifice the odd conversation on which colour American Apparel leggings you’d buy if you actually had any money in place of an in-depth analysis of the football, but it might just be worth it. Of course, this is all relying on a few tried and tested stereotypes and many of these examples can ring true for friends from both sexes. But on the whole, girls certainly shouldn’t rule out living with boys, or at least in a mixed-sex house to get a welcome balance between the two. A couple of Y chromosomes around the place might just make it a better place to live.