My husband always leaves pizza in its box on the counter until it’s gone, even if it takes a couple of days. I used to refrigerate, but since he never gets sick, now I leave the pizza out too.
I fold the towels “his” way.
We go to bed with the TV on because he “can’t fall asleep when it’s quiet”.
The cats aren’t allowed on the counters anymore. Okay, so he’s probably right about that one.
I’m sure there are others I’ll think of soon, but tell me: How has living with someone else changed your habits?
I use a mouse left-handed. Not a roommate, but the person in college whose computer I used most often before getting my own. Yes, this was in the dark days of the late 1980s before all the cool kids had their own computers.
It turns out he got into the habit because his prior roommmate had been left handed, which I guess makes me a 3rd generation mouse lefty.
I’ve become much more fastidious. My roommate is slovenly enough that, if left unchecked, he will turn the apartment into an uninhabitable disaster area. I’ve had to learn to clean up for both of us.
Since we have one television in the apartment, I’ve limited my video game time significantly. I can’t imagine it’s any fun for him to watch me play Mario or whatever; when we’re both in the apartment (which is rare), we try to watch something we both enjoy.
We can’t, as he says, “File things on the floor” anymore. Hmm. I never thought much about throwing some clothes on the floor while I’m trying clothes on, for instance, but he says that’s where our feet go, and our feet go outside (we try to have a no-shoes policy, but doesn’t always happen). I guess he’s right.
An African superstition: If I sweep the floor after the sun goes down, I can’t throw away what’s in the dustpan until the morning. (I have asked him if he really believes that something bad will happen if I do. He says he doesn’t. However. Can we just do it that way. So I do.)
Another African thing (at least where he is from, the Congo, and our friend from Benin is the same way): You don’t walk over someone’s legs or walk over someone, if that person is sitting on the flooor, for instance. If you DO walk over them, you UNwalk over them. But! I pointed out that I have to sort of climb over him to get out of bed, because my side is on the wall, and he says that’s OK. I think he must have made up that part out of necessity, I don’t know.
I use the subtitles when watching dvds. I watch a lot of movies and tv shows early in the am. I keep the sound on, but at a low volume. The subtitles help me not miss some of the dialogue.
I don’t talk when watching movies at home. My friends and I make fun of something dumb or talk about something interesting in movies we’re watching. Part of the fun. My husband hates it when I speculate about the plot of a movie I’ve never seen, or make fun of something, even if he’s seen the movie before. He’s more forgiving of stupidity in movies than I am, so I’ve learned to bite my tongue to keep from ruining his fun.
I keep the thermostat lower and put on a sweater, because he likes it cooler than I do.
I pay attention to how I fold clothes and towels. Left on my own, I probably wouldn’t fold them the same way every time. He’s got a system. Generally, he folds them, because I do it “wrong.” But I try.
TMI: I clean my hairball out of the shower drain every day. Yeah, I’m gross. I have long hair. When I lived by myself, I wouldn’t have noticed it until it was big enough to clog the drain. He’s horrified by it, so after every shower, I scoop out my hairball.
I check all pockets before doing the laundry. This is partially because of learning the hard way after washing paper a couple times, and because of my husband’s habit of leaving pens in his jeans pockets. After a couple pens exploded in the dryer, I learned. He’s gotten better about taking them out, though, so it’s a balance.
I follow his dishwasher lock system, because it makes sense. Unlocked: dirty dishes. Locked: cleaned dishes.
Oh! I thought of another one. When we make spaghetti, he wants to keep noodles and sauce separate so everyone can get as much as they want of either one. I say you should mix noodles and sauce together.
His way, the noodles almost immediately dry into a sticky clump. Also, we usually have either leftover noodles or leftover sauce, never both. It hangs around a few days and then we throw it out. My way, everyone gets an equal amount of sauce on their noodles, and the leftovers are still palatable.
We do it his way. I’m not about to argue with a lunatic sauce-noodle separatist!
My mom always served them separately. Because she would put butter on her spaghetti and eat it like that, and would eat the sauce (it was meat sauce) with a spoon. The first time I saw spaghetti served with the sauce already on it was a revelation (although everybody in my family, other than my mom, always put the sauce on the noodles - it just wasn’t served to us that way.)
My roommate in college stopped stepping on books (or for that matter, stacking them on the floor) after watching me and my sister physically wince every time she did it.
Conversely, I started refrigerating ketchup to make her happy.
I’m not coming up with much other than mundane groceries I now include in the weekly shopping that I wouldn’t have before. His milk, his bread, etc.
The spaghetti thing made me laugh, though. After a year of dating, I started getting overly anxious that we had yet to have a fight. Like, how do we know we’ll handle it okay when the inevitable happens, right? Finally, it comes to pass that we both think the other one makes spaghetti wrong. Our sauce recipes vary widely, but we both like the others so that’s not it, it’s an issue of olive oil.
Him: Oil keeps the pasta from sticking, and my cite is this very prestigious and much-loved Italian cookbook that’s never led me wrong. Besides, I like olive oil a lot.
Me: Cecil says different, so do most pasta manufacturers. Olive oil is great, but not in the boiling water or Og forbid added to the pasta post-boiling. If it’s sticking during cooking, use a bigger pot/more water. Oily pasta doesn’t grab onto the sauce, but if you like it that way then oil your own portion and not everyone’s.
We still each do it our own way and eat it when the other one does it wrong, but who knew spaghetti was such an individualized thing?
Why not have a compromise? Serve it at the table separate; mix the sauce and noodles together for storage as leftovers.
(Also, if the noodles are immediately sticking together, you might be overcooking them. I say might, because when we have pasta it’s always slightly underdone- every one then adds cold sauce and microwaves it to desired hotness.)
I’ve become a much healthier eater. I currently live with my sister and brother-in-law. She’s pregnant (and obese to start with) and he’s self-insured with an insurance-mandated food plan (he’s also obese, but has lost a fair amount of weight as a result of his insurance company threatening to cut him). My part of the rent is groceries and cooking. If I only buy healthy food and only prepare healthy food, it makes it easier for both of them, who have agreed that they ought to eat healthier, not to eat crap. As a result, I don’t get to eat junk food much either. Overall, I like it, but I’ve found that I’ve lost my tolerance to greasy food, which is a bummer when I’m craving a burger and fries.
I’ve changed my food habits somewhat; she’s not fond of tomatoes and dislikes mushrooms (to take two examples), so I’ve either reduced, moved or eliminated those from my diet. I’ve stopped sleeping diagonally on the bed (this one is true; I like sprawling) since she started sleeping there. I’ve tried to be less messy and more respectful of public space, since we share with two other people. I tend to spend more time at home, and less time on impulsive things like midnight photography walks or sudden museum visits (an overall observation, not a complaint).
Oh, and yes, the separation of Sauce and Noodle is a furious debate, and I’ve mostly capitulated. I’m a Mixer, she’s a Server, and the twain shall never meet, except when someone decides that life’s too short for this sort of thing…
I’m a noodle separatist too and it’s OT, but one way to battle the dry and sticky pasta problem is to pour some of the water you boiled it in into a separate glass or container before you drain the rest away. Then add a bit of the water back to the noodles as needed to keep them moist . Obviously this won’t work if the noodles have been sitting around for a long time, but it keeps them sticky-free as long as you’re serving.
I eat a lot less rice. When I lived with my brother there was always rice in the cooker, but my roommate isn’t a fan of sticky white Korean rice so I only cook it occasionally nowadays.
I fold my wife’s (and daughter’s) socks the way my wife likes them when I do the laundry. I still fold my own the way I always did, although Pepper Mill folds them her way. So my sock drawer has socks folded two different ways.
Well apart from completely changing my eating habits, my sleeping habits, my financial situation, my drinking habits, my choice of vehicle and what I get to do with my free time: not much really.
We can’t eat together in front of the television in the dark. I used to enjoy watching movies in the dark; and if I wanted to snack, that meant eating in the dark. Or at least by tv light. But the wife says no, so now we watch movies with a lamp on until we’re done with the popcorn or pizza rolls or whatever. She says she has to “see” her food. :rolleyes:
I cured her of her gastly habit of cooking bacon with a spatula, though. Tongs make flipping easier and you can sort of stretch the bacon out with them and keep it relatively flat. It still pains me to watch her mother, who my wife learned it from, scooping up bacon strips with a spatula and trying to flip them over and flatten them like she’s searing a hamburger… ugh.
