Feature image via The Gender Spectrum Collection.

We all know the stereotype: lesbians move in together really quickly. Too quickly, some might say! If you ask me, it’s because women and non-binary people are so fucking amazing that it’s hard not to become totally engrossed in them and forget that you also have to eat breakfast and go to work.

Moving in together can be a wonderful next step in your relationship, if taking “steps” in “relationships” is your thing. Cohabitation brings you closer together. It allows you to hang out with your BFF/boo as much as you want, and it’s also the most financially and logistically feasible way to start your future as a unit. However, it’s not 100% wise to leap into a living arrangement based solely on your dopamine levels. Love is not enough to sustain a partnership. Sometimes it’s better to just take your time and get to know each other in a low-pressure way without worrying about chores and rent.

So, how can you grow closer to your boo and feel like you’re taking the “next step” without signing away a year of your life and potentially making an enormous mistake? LOTS OF WAYS!

1. Make your quality time more quality.

It’s hard to grow closer when you’re Netflix and chilling most evenings, but luckily there are lots of ways to turn your bonding time up to 10. What about going on each one of the Gottmans’ Eight Dates? Or try this intense 36-question exercise that supposedly can cause anyone to fall in love with anyone.

2. Go on vacation together.

Many folks say that you should never move in with someone until you’ve been on a trip with them. Travel is a real test of your relationship. It’s also just a nice way to bond with your partner in a new setting! Take a trip! The longer the better. Between the planning and the hassle and the missed flights, you’ll feel about as irritatingly close to your partner as the most cohabitating-est of couples.

3. Start a joint project.

Much like living together, starting a joint project requires mutual investment from both of y’all. And there are so many possibilities to choose from! Maybe a podcast? Or a community gardening plot? OMG start a couples’ YouTube channel and send me the link!

It’s always easier to stick with a new project when there’s another person involved, and plus, now you guys have a special thing.

4. Learn a new skill together.

In every queer relationship, there is at least one person who has always wanted to be in a band. Go buy some instruments and bang on ‘em ’til you sound good! You could also learn to cook a new type of cuisine, speak a new language, or fix your own car(s). Seeing your hunny’s new ~skills~ in action might actually make you more attracted to them.

5. Go on vacation together again.

So you’re sitting there thinking, “Okay, we’ve DONE all the pre-moving in together stuff, I want an APARTMENT and a JOINT CAT already.” And you already know that you’d work well together as cohabitating boos, because you went to Mexico that one time and you barely even fought. But on the other hand, it’s only been two months and you have no idea what her credit score is.

DON’T DO IT SARAH. Go back to Mexico again.

6. Start a joint savings account.

Maybe you could start a joint savings account with your boo, like on Digit or in a shoebox. Your savings could go toward your next trip, a pet, an extravagant date — anything that gets you both excited. Is this a good idea? I don’t know. Why is anyone listening to me??

7. Get matching haircuts.

Now we’re talking! Even better, get matching haircuts and when people point it out, act like you’ve always had them. “We’re soulmates, Danny! We were born like this!”

8. Get a custom-made T-shirt with their face on it.

You can buy a shirt with your boo’s face on it from certain websites. Buy five, one for each day of the week. Or maybe buy one of those teddy bears with a custom voice recording in it, and the voice recording is her saying, “Sit on my face, Bianca.” That’ll be just like she’s there with you, all the time.

9. Buy a tent and put it in their living room.

It doesn’t count as living together if you sleep in a tent in their living room :) :) :) :) :)

10. Move into the apartment next door.

Have you met those people that say they never want to live with their partner, they want to live in separate houses next door, like Frida and Diego? Ha! Joke’s on them. You should move into the apartment next door simply because it will be much easier to spend six nights a week at their place if it’s next door. We all know you stay there six nights a week. Stop lying.

12. Legally adopt them as your child.

Fuck it! There’s no avoiding it — this person is meant to be in your life FOREVER. And yes, it’s still too soon to move in together. So just legally adopt them as your child instead. (Googles “can you legally adopt an adult”) Good news! You can legally adopt an adult. Now you’re tied together forever with no lease involved.

13. Donate your kidney to them.

Do they even need a kidney? Whatever, it’s fine. Give them your kidney. Then take one of their kidneys. It’s a kidney swap, you still don’t live together and everything is fine. This is what maturity looks like.

14. Write and star in an original Netflix series about you two living together.

You can technically live together as long as it’s in fiction. Quit your job, learn screenwriting and acting, and then write and star in a Netflix series about the dreamy life that you live with your boo in your shared apartment. Should your partner get to star in the series too, or should you give their role to Lena Waithe??? I’ll leave that part up to you.

15. Transfer your consciousness into the body of a dog and become their pet.

Somewhere, there is an evil scientist who is just dying to turn you into a dog. There are no rules re: “moving too fast” with dogs, so now you can become as codependent as you like! Maybe you can even pull the move from that book/movie A Dog’s Journey and continuously transfer your soul into new dog bodies whenever the current one dies. That, my friends, is a happily ever after if I ever saw one!

16. Colonize a new planet together.

Take your boo and leave this Earth forever for a very tiny planet that’s just big enough for the two of you. You’ll share your entire newly colonized planet, not a cramped house or apartment, so it’s totally casual! Whoa. A workaround for the ages.

There are around 30 billion planets in our galaxy alone, and surely one of them is approximately the right size and contains oxygen??? Surely. Scientists, back me up here.

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