The title of this post of course refers to an episode of my favorite television show (Friends). In the episode, Monica’s boyfriend Chandler is moving in and her longtime roommate Rachel must move out. Monica tells Rachel:  “You were so great. You made it so easy.And now you have to leave. AND I HAVE TO LIVE WITH A BOY!!!!” (also, there is no video of this quote online so that link leads you to some strange Rachel/Monica tribute with no words. Sorry, the internet failed me.)

I can relate with Monica. As of August 15, I live with a boy – my boyfriend of four years, Alex. For six years, I have lived with girl roommates and found them to be quite pleasant. My apartments were girl-centric. You walked in and right away you knew: Oh, girls live here (maybe my 10 DVD seasons of Friends gave it away).

I’ve encountered a few different behaviors that are very un-girl-like since moving in with Alex:

1. Sports memorabilia crowds my kitchen. I share my morning bowl of cereal with photos of Clay Matthews, Aaron Rodgers and Ryan Braun.

Look! Ryan Braun watches over me while I eat and there is splatter paint on my wall!

2. There are currently four gaming systems in our house. FOUR.

3. At any given time, there are about-to-be-eaten sandwiches resting on our stove, our furniture or our open refrigerator door.

Look! Any surface can double as a plate!

4. There’s about a 50/50 chance the toilet seat is up. The same odds ESPN is playing on our television.

These things are, at the most, minor annoyances and at the least, pretty hilarious. I’m slowly adjusting to these slight changes. If anything does bother me I combat it with compromising and bribing mature, adult conversations.

Fear not, this story of cohabitation is not all doom and gloom and hulking sports figures watching me eat. It’s really fun. And it has been a pretty easy adjustment. And living with Alex comes with perks too:

1. He does “boy things” like take out the trash, carry groceries and install air conditioners. I’m all for female power, but man I hate that stuff.

2. Mundane things like a trip to the grocery store or finding a parking spot or cooking dinner or killing spiders are suddenly more enjoyable when you do them with someone else.

3. It’s so nice to actually hang out instead of conducting our relationship via phone and two day visits. We’ve officially spent more total hours together these past 2 1/2 weeks than we have the grand total of the rest of our relationship (that is probably untrue. But seriously, long distance for 4 years sucks).

4. He’s incredibly helpful and even eager to complete tasks I hate doing (see #1). I probably would have avoided assembling this 12 cube shelf from Target for 2-3 months but Alex gleefully spent over an hour putting it together as soon as I got it. Some man ego issue about building things? No idea, but I love that shelf and I love that I had nothing to do with it.

Look! Furniture I had nothing to do with building!

5. My puppy Bennie is arriving soon and, judging by excitement levels and amount of YouTube videos that he’s watched, I know Alex is going to be a great dog dad.

So far, this living with a boy thing hasn’t been scary at all. I don’t know what Monica was so worried about.