Love in the time of lockdown

Eve Jones finds that there’s a big difference between living with someone and L-I-V-I-N-G W-I-T-H S-O-M-E-O-N-E

WHEN you decide to move in together you have an element of confidence that you know what you’re letting yourself in for. You like their sense of humour, you know how they like their tea, whether they have good table manners and whether or not they wear teeny-tighty whities or billowing boxers. The things you didn’t know – such as they dream of immaculately ironed under crackers – soon become obvious and accepted as amusing quirks. After a while you become familiar with the finer details. You begin to wash each other’s smalls (or not so smalls), stake claim on the TV remote, and you share a bathroom, the ultimate booster in the getting-to-know-you stakes.

Lockdown presents a new level of personal space sharing. Previously, you just thought you were living with someone. What you were actually doing was having dinner or planning DIY together, going to bed, waking up in the morning, having a little spoon – a little fork if you were lucky – then trotting off to work for the day, returning home for dinner. Before lockdown it didn’t matter that you were actually a slatternly tramp because the magic house cleaning fairy would come once a week and a 10-minute whip round of discarded clothes, papers, half-drunk mugs of tea, sticky dog bones and dead flowers was all that was needed to keep harmony and peace. Since the age of lockdown, you are no longer living with someone, you are L-IV-I-N-G W-I-T-H S-O-M-E-O-N-E.

The thing about L-I-V-I-N-G W-I-T-H S-O-M-E-O-N-E, when you can’t leave the house, is that there’s nowhere to hide. All those little habits you’d been concealing are suddenly very there. A bit like when my grandad died and my grandma, who had been berating him for decades for leaving lights on, realised she was still shouting at him to switch them off weeks after and had to concede she’d probably been doing him an injustice for more than 70 years.

Take the underwear. In laundry terms, you probably think socks and pants split the nation into two: folders and non-folders. Lockdown spare time introduces not just a knicker folder but a compulsive pants arranger. Their undies now ironed must be folded with precision, placed on top of each other in the same direction, then centrally in the drawer. Socks must be matched, folded but not balled. An Origami Undie Master, although aggressive about how pants are presented, is quite unable to pick up, wash or put away any other laundry. They like to change their clothes frequently, meaning the

An army of naked loo roll soldiers amasses on the cistern ready for Battle of the Bog Rolls

washing room constantly whirrs and steams, but if they take control they shrink the merino, turn whites grey and abandon soggy loads to mildew. So laundry duties befall the messy knickered washerwoman.

Then there’s loo rolls. When you go for a wee and find an empty loo roll when you are L-I-V-I-N-G W-I-T-H S-O-M-E-O-NE, the inability to take a cardboard loo roll off the holder and replace it becomes a serious issue. One party, oblivious, doesn’t put them in the bin; the other party, refusing to assume the role of official loo roll changer, won’t put them in the bin out of principle. An army of naked loo roll soldiers amasses on the cistern ready to fight in World War III, Battle of the Bog Roll. When Loo Roll Changer finally loses their mind Loo Roll

Leaver has all nine loo rolls fired at their head as they watch TV.

Fridge etiquette becomes integral to the order of the house. A yogurt out of place or, heaven forbid, a vegetable in the salad section turns a chilly atmosphere frosty. With shelves groaning under the weight of lockdown essentials that ‘need eating’ (3 boxes of quails’ eggs, 2 racks of ribs, 1 side of salmon) – and no room in the freezer because half an essential pig has been delivered from Cornwall – to ensure nothing spoils a gastronomic frenzy is underway. Eating three meals a day together has put a microscope and tannoy to table manners. Lip-smacking and chomping were never acceptable and are now grounds for divorce. Thankfully, small children have big appetites and will perpetually graze, which clears space (unfortunately in turn this presents a thrice daily “can you wipe my bum” call, prompting a selective hearing battle of wills between the grown-ups). Soaking pans are in the same league as left loo rolls but generally get disposed of sooner given the previous issue. How to stack and do you rinse before loading the dishwasher debates rage. “Isn’t that what a dishwasher is for?” vs “Do you want to wash your dishes in leftover lumps of pasta?” Only the emergency mugs are left in the cupboard because tables, chests of drawers and bookcases have acquired collections of the favourites. All are guilty here, so nobody argues.

The gardens, however, are on the up. When it comes to lugging compost bags and scavenging in sheds for make-do planters, teamwork makes the dream work. It turns out that two hands make light work of hanging all the old pictures that have been behind sofas or wardobes. Hot-desking, while a little tense to begin with, has been useful. Seems, if you both wallop the crashed computer and kick the printer hard at the same time, you don’t need to call the office IT guy after all.

In reality L-I-V-I-N-G W-I-T-H S-OM-E-O-N-E in lockdown is quite handy. If you’ve spent 24/7 with someone for months and you know you can legitimately throw loo rolls at their head or fold their pants precisely or slurp tea without killing one another, and if you still fancy a little spoon or fork in the morning, then, in time, just living together, that’ll be a bloody doddle.