Belgium the first year – sharing the flat

It is now one year of living in Belgium, living in Antwerp, living in Klapdorp. While the adventures of living in the Flemish culture certainly deserve an own chapter, lets start with summing up the personal things. It is also one year of living for the first time together with my boyfriend. And by that I mean not only sharing love and compassion, but much more serious: sharing the flat.

It is true when people say that living together is getting to know each other. For example: Getting to know what are the favorite songs of my boyfriend. Sung in bed while I am about to get a clue of Horckheimer/Adorno´s „Dialectic of Enlightenment“. My boyfriend's favorite songs seem to be pop songs from the eighties. I think that Horckheimer/Adorno have a certain disgust about mass culture since it ruins the reason. But maybe I missed the point - its hard to concentrate since I live in Klapdorp.

For example: Understanding why my boyfriend gets to the conclusion that the kitchen cloth has to lay on the left side of the sink. Every time I pick it up from there, my hygienic brain shouts: Right! It has to lie got damn right! Logical, from here it´s so much easier to get picked without touching the just cleaned dishes. But while living together I have understood that we change attitudes only very slowly. So I train my boyfriends access to reasonable placement of the kitchen cloth by putting it again and again on the right hand side of the think.

For example: Accepting how breakfast on Sundays can be such an irrelevant story. Breakfast on Sundays means to me: fruits, eggs, olives, vegetables, rolls of all kind, arranged in an aesthetic way. Breakfast on Sundays is a symbol of the triumph of life over the market, of basic luxury for everyone, of free spaces in a widely determined daily routine. In short, Sunday´s breakfast is a symbol of a better tomorrow. But Duchies do not seem to get it. How could it happen that they did not get over this sandwich thing? All they need is toast with cheese and margarine. Margarine!

But after one year of living together, the most complicated thing turns out to be always in contact with myself. Especially with my bad days and bad sides. And there are many, I had to discover. Before living together I did not know, because it was just me who had to stand me. I used to be quite content. But that was before having that walking mirror around me. Suddenly, I hear myself talking and reacting. Lacking interest of my boyfriend's hobbies, complaining about the placement of stuff, having difficulties accepting completely irrelevant habits. I got surprised that I am not interested in chatting and socializing every moment of the day. In fact, I found out to be quite a loner. I discovered to not be interested in food which consists basically out of potatoes and vegetables and I surely discovered that I hate pop songs from the 80ies.

After living together for one year, I can certainly tell that my boyfriend is a nice guy. But I have got some serious doubts about that intolerant, moody, anti-social and boring guy he is living with...

Despite all ups and downs of daily rollercoasting while living together, certainly the correct place of a kitchen cloth: right.