Cohabitation Probs: No Probs?

I created the segment "Cohabitation Probs" a month or so ago. When I did this, I intended to update it quite regularly. But Gideon and I rarely have problems living together; even if we have a messy break-up during which I slash my own car's tires to make a point, I could see us still living together. Why? We cohabitate so well. We are both clean people and our work schedules allow us to see each other enough that we actually miss each other and value our time together. Honestly, though, the "clean" part of the equation is the most important to me.

I once dated a man whose apartment was so messy that there was only one way to get anywhere in his apartment. He also collected way too many things, from old newspapers to McDonald's toys. This stuff - I usually hate using the word "stuff," but it is so true in this case - permeated his entire space, spiking my anxiety more than that time in 2007 when Veronica Mars was cancelled and I spent two months mourning it and writing hate letters to Dawn Ostroff, head of the CW network. At one point, I began slowly removing trash and other stuff I deemed trash, hoping to clean up his place slowly without him realizing it.

I am aware that this is kind of terrible behavior, but if you saw all those sad, abandoned pizza boxes slowly realize they would never make it to the trash with all their friends, you would have done something about it, too. Of course, you could argue that the pizza boxes eventually created a pizza box community, forming their own trash heap in what should have been a living space. Really, I admire their courage and determination. 

After this experience, I vowed to never date a messy person again. "If some guy brings me back to his place after a date and it's really, really messy," I told myself after breaking up with my ex-boyfriend, "I will definitely not sleep with him. Unless he's Idris Elba." (Idris Elba is the exception to every rule I live by, including the one that prohibits me from driving with my feet. Don't judge me. He is very, very attractive.) 

So I definitely lucked out with Gideon, who cleans up after himself habitually. Our current rule - though he follows it less strictly than I do - is that the first person home each day does minimal cleaning, keeping the house consistently tidy. I let him get away with not doing the dishes occasionally because, like my dear Idris Elba, he is very, very attractive. 

Though I would not break my no-driving-with-your-feet rule for him. That's for Idris and Idris only.