Flat Mating Issues

It’s just a little crush…

Six weeks ago I moved into my new flat in Brixton after having a complete landlord-nightmare at my old house in Shepherds Bush. 

I can’t even remember finding it on the flat finding app, but I had clicked ‘favourite’ on it and then promptly got a message from the guy in the flat asking if I wanted to view the room. I replied yes, along with messages to other prospective flatmates arranging times to view theirs also. 

I went to view it after work, thinking in the morning that I was viewing a flat in Angel and only realising it was the one in Brixton when I typed in the address to my map app. 

I called the guy, whose name I couldn’t remember and definitely couldn’t pronounce, when I arrived at Brixton since my phone killed the map app upon arrival. He answered with his thick Mancunian accent and I was instantly happy in an ‘omgthankgodhesenglishshitthatssobadofmetothinkthat’ kind of way. 

I’d had a lot of bad luck with flat hunting and culture differences had played a small part I’m sad to say. 

When I got there I swear Liam Gallagher answered the door. He was the spitting image and sounded just like him. 

He showed me the flat and then we sat and chatted for a bit while I smiled a lot, played on my Yorkshire accent and announced that I loved the flat. 

Two days later he text saying it was mine if I wanted it. I replied yes! We arranged when I’d move in and then a week later I did. 

My friends asked what my flat was like and then quizzed me about my new flatmate, was he cute being top of the list. No, he’s not my type.

Boy did that change.

My type, as I’ve always known, isn’t looks – not that he’s not good looking, he is, he’s got the best smile but we’ll get to that. My friends know my type as being ‘Americans’, I do love the accents. My type is nice guys. Simply, guys that are just nice people that I have fun with. I (and the rest of girl-world) love a man that can make me laugh; uncontrollable, belly laugh. If he can do that I’m pretty much his. 

After a week we had our routine down to a T. We’d finish work, eat, I’d chill on the sofa and him on the chair next to it, we’d watch TV and talk throughout whatever show we had on about either the show or our own stories and we’d smoke cigarettes. This guy could make me laugh. I loved coming home. 

When I’d been living in Shepherds Bush I would go out for drinks after work most nights to avoid going home. 

Here, I couldn’t think of anything better than being at home with him. 

A week after I moved in I had my work summer party. The night before I had faked tanned which meant I was stood in my kitchen/living room looking bright orange, my hair up off my orange face, with tiny shorts on and my dressing gown wrapped round my boobs when he came home. 

I let him know I’d tanned and was a little naked and he came in. We were so comfortable together I didn’t feel like the twat that I looked and he didn’t look at me any differently than I always looked. We chatted for hours and then I went to bed. That was the first night I heard him play guitar. 

When I’d come to view the flat there had been a guitar on the chair but I’d thought it was like the longboard I had in my room; more for decoration. 

I opened my door a little to hear him play and then text him asking him to play louder if it was him playing. He replied that he was sorry if he woke me and I let him know he hadn’t. 

The next morning he shouted down to my room that he was leaving, I ran upstairs in my summer party dress and shouted “wait wait wait, do I look ok?” At the top of the stairs I stopped in my tracks; this was the first time I’d seen him dressed in work clothes. He looked so handsome. He stared at me in my dress, the first time he had seen me in one, and smiled. Then offered to help me zip it up just as I finally managed to do it myself. We smiled at each other and said bye. 

Basically the ending to this night was, I got completely hammered at my summer party, wound up at a rock gig in my pretty blue skater dress with the guy at work that I had been crushing on for a year, then finally made it home at 1.30am where we’ll pick up from. 

I stood at my front door trying to work out the millions of keys I had. I would drop them, sigh, swear at the keys, pick them up and try again. I did this for 5 minutes before he came to the door and let me in. Apparently my face was utter shock that he was at the door, even though I had only just pressed the buzzer for help. He let me in and I went to the living room, he went to the bathroom downstairs, and then I drifted down the stairs to go to my room while explaining “I’m hammered!” To which he burst out laughing (his exact thought, he told me the next day, being ‘no shit!’). A few minutes later he came to my room to check I was ok since I had suddenly gone silent. Then I left the flat for a drunken booty call. 

When I came home at 8am I had the hangover from hell and the weekend was a write-off. 

He went out that night and came back the next day at 2pm. He’d hooked up with his ex. We laughed about our drunken hookups and he went to sleep his hangover off, then was meeting me later when I was with my friends. 

He came to meet me and two of my friends at a local park and we all chatted and chilled together for a few hours before he went to the sauna and my friends and I went to my friends flat. My two friends then told me he was perfect for me and they love him. I couldn’t stop smiling. I’d been there a week and it felt like we were an old married couple at home (ignoring the casual hookups we’d just had, of course). 

So that’s how it started. One week in.  

Six weeks in, my feelings for him are in full swing. When he comes home and sees me he has the best smile I’ve ever seen. It’s so genuine. So happy to see that I’m here. I melt. We haven’t kissed or anything like that. And I’ve spent far too many hours googling signs that a guy likes you, only to be told by Google that you should never EVER date your flatmate. Ever. Point blank. Nope. Not gonna work. Don’t go there. Damnit.  

Everything was going great. He’d cooked me dinner. I brought him a small present back from my trip to Paris. He’d suggested we open the wine. Everything was looking positive. And then my German friend came to visit for 4 days. 

She knew I liked him, I’d not shut up about how happy I was. And day 2, the night I was having a group over to my flat for us all to go out (Flatmate included), while we were getting ready she announced to me that she didn’t see it. She just didn’t see me with him. As she puffed up her breasts in my mirror and fixed her lipstick. My heart sank. No. Don’t you dare do this to me. 

She spent the night flirting with him and I spent the night drinking my feelings of déjà vu. 

We had two more awkward days before she flew back to Germany and, for many reasons not only linked to that night (but ones I can’t be bothered to list in order to justify my next remark), I’ll never see her again. If I can help it. 

Things haven’t been the same at the flat since. And I’m a little sad to say I’m a little heartbroken. In fact I’m devastated. 

We hardly talk now, he avoided me for about a week after she left, and it feels awkward at times. 

If anyone has any comments on how to fix this or my head, I’d be much obliged. 

TBC…

xxHBxx