If you’ve been single AF for a long ass time and finally find yourself getting into a real relationship, a lot of things change pretty quickly in your life. Many of your old habits and the way you live day-to-day needs to be altered slightly to accommodate the great new addition to your life, which is tricky but definitely not impossible. Here are just some of the changes you likely have to make when you go from being on your own to part of a couple:
- You need to upgrade your at-home clothes. Say goodbye to the days of the hair dye-stained t-shirts and the leggings with the holes in them that you downgraded from your regular wardrobe to your lounging clothes — you actually need to have decent comfort clothing now, and cute pajamas too. You need to make somewhat of an effort to look nice even during the cozy times. Sure, your new boyfriend will say he thinks you look cute anyway and maybe he does, but you’re still self-conscious about it.
- Your worn-in couch spot starts to fade. Since you actually go out more now and do all the things with your new guy, your couch gets neglected more often, as do all of your Netflix shows. You’re actually behind on things rather than finishing five seasons of a series within a month. It’s not a bad thing, but sometimes you do glance longingly at that slight delve in the couch and remember your single AF days.
- Holding in bodily functions is the actual worst. Don’t even pretend like this isn’t a big deal because it is. You have to actively remember there’s another human in your company a lot of the time, so your free spirit behavior at home needs to be toned down a bit — even if it’s killing you and causing you actual physical pain. Trying to remain sexy and keeping the new romance alive is hard AF sometimes. Ugh.
- You suddenly develop a complex about your go-to lazy meals. Remember those times where you would have crackers dipped into salad dressing with melted cheese on top and called that dinner? Yeah, you can’t do that stuff anymore — not without your partner thinking you’re crazy in the process. So, you retire the odd snacks and quick meals in favor of cooking those delicious adult meals all the time again… at least for now.
- Sharing a bed again is bittersweet. You absolutely loved sleeping diagonally across your queen sized bed, but now you’re sharing your space a lot more which is a pretty fair trade-off. Even though you’re happy to have the person you care about finally next to you, you sometimes wish you didn’t have to now calculate your sleep movements to avoid accidentally punching them in the face mid-slumber.
- You have to constantly make sure your living space is on point. In the beginning of a new relationship, you’re constantly looking to impress your boyfriend or girlfriend to prove to them (and yourself) that you can keep your act together and have a relationship too. You tidy things a lot more often and do a lot more deep cleaning because you want to make sure your space is inviting for the special person in your world now.
- You have to buy ALL the groceries. Even if you’re not living together, having your partner over all the time and vice versa means stocking your fridge and pantry for enough to satisfy two appetites — and since you’re no longer on the ‘cheese and crackers for dinner’ diet, you actually buy the good cheese and more domesticated items. Sorry, ramen noodles, it’s over. Who have you become?
- You can’t be gross for days on end. While you used to spend sometimes an entire weekend in pajamas, leaving the worn out couch spot only for food, you have to actually shower and be presentable for another human again. While you’ll still have those lazy days to yourself sometimes, you’re no longer dedicating entire weekends to extreme single AF downtime.
- Sometimes you forget that you actually have a partner to do things with. Sometimes you actually wonder if this is real life or if this is all just an elaborate dream — perhaps you’re in a coma? It’s been such a routine of life for you to plan everything for yourself and by yourself that finally having someone in your life to go to all the social functions you used to roll to solo is still a bit of a foreign (but awesome) concept.
- You’re a permanently exhausted pigeon but you love it. You’re tired AF during the transition because let’s face it, being in a real relationship again after being single AF for a long ass time is quite an adjustment to make. However, you do it happily because while your single AF life was pretty damn awesome, so is being in a relationship — it just takes a bit to transition.
