21st century living.

Over the past few years I've discovered a down side to living on your own; it makes you go crazy. You spend all that time sitting by yourself listening to your inner voice telling you what to do and think; in a sense you might not be talking out loud but you are talking to yourself which in normal circles means you're bat-shit-crazy (which by the way; I don't believe.) It's important to have other people around to dilute the advice you're giving to yourself because it is shit advice, for a start its definitely one sided, it's also skewed insofar as it's going to be what you want to hear which isn't normally useful and it will most probably be flawed because you'll be shitfaced. Trust me, when you live on your own, you'll be drunk most of the time.

So you need a flat mate, lets face facts, with the current economy you're not going to afford anything by yourself bought or rented. First rule is; you need a flat mate, not the other way round. Be in the driving seat or you'll end up living in a hovel with someone who thinks they're in charge as opposed to living in a hovel where you think you're in charge. Second rule is, choose carefully your house mate, actually scratch that, it doesn't matter what you do because you're going to probably be sharing with a pig or a prig anyway, its been my experience there's nothing in between. You must always be aware of your own behaviour and traits, you have to understand things from your house mates point of view, you must 'put yourself in their shoes' so you can understand that while they are a filthy unhygienic animal; you are in fact perfect.

The fact is (and it is an incontrovertible fact) even if you choose to share with a best friend, come the end of the lease you will not be best friends, things will have cooled off considerably because you will have discovered just how much of an unfeeling, unclean beast that best friend was. You can also substitute best friend for partner, if you're going to move in with a girl or boy friend then go ahead but be sure to rent only, don't for example go and buy something because you will come to understand; while you will have done very little, well lets be honest, nothing wrong; they will have morphed into a complete ogre. It is far easier to disentangle yourself from a 12 month lease than a 30 year mortgage.

You might ask now if a male or female flat mate is best, the answer is easy; both are equally as bad. Female flat shares fall into two categories, they're either manic self-centred selfish Princess Me Me's with a make-up fetish or they are filthy hippies with stinking hair and a cat fetish. Male flat shares are bad for the opposite reason, they are either lazy filthy bastards who seem happy after having flushed the toilet to leave streaks of shit up the side of the pan or they are lazy filthy bastards who don't flush the toilet and leave streaks of shit up the side of the pan. Females care to much and males don't care at all, remember though; you and I are perfect, we don't count.

If you're going to share, where does the sharing aspect begin and end? It begins and ends with payment of bills & living space. I can guarantee if you say 'pshaw! don't worry about it, you can use my milk' this means that for the duration of the let they now think they can use your groceries (not just the milk mind) and never ever buy their own victuals. The same goes for living space, flat mates are like vampires, if you invite them in once they'll never leave, you see, they're room will be a shit hole, yours won't, they'll just prefer your space to theirs because you won't have mold growing in the corners.

When eventually you've become sick of living with a cross between a tramp and a serial killer, you'll have to dissolve the flat share, this is always awkward, it's a bit like going through a divorce but without the kids (unless you had an unfurnished let and you bought furniture together, which by the way is a really fucking stupid thing to do.) You'll probably have a minimum 30 days notice to serve, here's a tip though, each month on top of the rent you're paying, into another account pay something extra so you can cover the months overlap on your next rental. Ok, you will resent giving the mucky bastard the flat to him or herself for a month but the alternative is probably worse, they might actually kill and eat you or perhaps just eat you which would probably be worse. Equally, drop hints to them that they should put something away each month, I have no idea how you'd broach the subject though.

Of course, you could bite the bullet and live on your own but remember, don't drink wine and listen to yourself, you might end up starting a blog and typing shit into it that seems to you to be the very pinnacle of sense and wisdom but to others seems like you drank to much cheap vino and face-dived into your key boardddddddddddddddddddddddddhjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjjnweeeeeeeeeeee      asddddddddddddddddddd,kfd99999999999999999llllllllllll................/.................;;;;;;#~~~~~~:~)1111!!