They've been together a year and this is only their second date
A friend of mine is moving in with her girlfriend this week. I know this because one of them just made a self-deprecating remark about “U-Hauling” on facebook. They’ve been together for a year.
It’s part of the lesbian relationship cycle. You meet her, make fuck-me eyes at her, fuck her, fuck her nonstop for twelve hours a day, confess your undying love to her, leave your toothbrush at her house, and then ask her to move in with you. She says yes of course because you spend all of your time apart texting each other about how in love you are, so what’s the difference anyway.
Then your friends say, “Moving in together? Already? Don’t you think you’re moving a little fast?” You exchange worried glances. You say, “Are we U-Hauling?”
My wife and I moved in together after we had known each other for two years and dated for eight months. I thought that was reasonable, but our queer friends gave us some major side-eye for it.
I wondered: what’s the standard, here? How long does the average straight couple date before they move in together?
To find my answer, I consulted the straightest of all straight people: the science writers at The Daily Mail.
According to this article from last August, the average straight couple moves in together at around thirty weeks. That’s just shy of eight months.
So why was it was U-Hauling when my wife and I moved in together at eight months and not when straight couples move in together at eight months?
I mean, obviously it’s just straight up homophobia. Straight people examine our choices much more closely than they would ever examine their own, because two women who sleep in the same bed must have something wrong with them, right, and there must be some proof of that in the way we date and have sex and make commitments.
And in turn, we lesbians examine our own relationships to root out and destroy even the tiniest shred of evidence that we aren’t normal, to prove to ourselves— and to straight people— that they’re wrong.
I’m going to show you something that will change your life.
It’s a graph that shows long-term relationship satisfaction rates for gay, lesbian, and straight couples. Straight couples are further divided into two categories: with and without children.
Lesbians are represented by that unbroken line up at the top. We experience the smallest decline in happiness over the first three years of the relationship and then remain consistently happier than straight and gay male couples over the next ten years.
(Poor straight couples! They have it the worst— their relationships just jump off a cliff and die.)
Do lesbian couples fall in love too fast? Are we too intense? Do we talk about our feelings too much and have embarrassing rituals like Processing Night on alternate Thursdays?
Maybe we get super intense and talk about our feelings and move in together because we’re awesome at relationships. If we’re stereotypes, we’re the happiest goddamn stereotypes in the world.
And don’t ever apologize for being happy, my lovelies.
