VitaminH

So I have a problem. And where better to turn for advice than the good people of the TFP?

For over 2 years now I've lived with two roommates, one male, one female, and myself, being the second male. I never balked at living with a girl, nor did it seem strange to me. From freshman year of college I was put on a co-ed floor and now 5 years later I'm more or less completely desensitized to living near and with girls. It's just another roommate to me.

Now enter the problem. Roughly 3 months ago I began dating a girl. I like her quite a bit, but her family (and thus her upbringing) is rather conservative. She knew from the start I had one female roommate and it never illicited comment in the past. However, the other male is moving out in about a week, leaving just me and the female until roughly next June. No problem for me, our rent is pretty cheap, and I'm totally used to living with this girl. I mentioned it to my girlfriend a few weeks ago, resulting in a mini freakout. We were with friends and aside from a small discussion right there about her not likeing the idea of me living with a girl alone it sort of fell by the wayside. I thought it was just the initial shock and she'd gotten over it.

Well a week or so it came up again. We had an almost 2 hour phone conversation about it again. Apparently she does not approve at all. I've made it very clear that things are not going to change here anytime soon, as I don't have the time or money to find a new roommate and new apartment, and honestly I wouldn't do that for her at this point anyway. I can't understand why. I keep wanting to discuss it because I know it bothers her, but she seems to want to just try to ignore it. I know all that is going to do is make it sit in her head and fester until it rears its ugly head at some point in the future.

All I can get out of here is essentially that she thinks its morally wrong for males and females to live together, even if they are just friends. It seemed at first that she was worried that something was going to happen between me and my roommate in a romantic sense, especially since we are now alone together. This, is more or less completely ridiculous. Living with this girl is more or less like living with my older sister, or even mother. I told my girl that for me to have a romantic interest in my roommate is like me having a romantic interest in my mother, but that didn't seem to do it. My friends who I have told this to have literally laughed out loud at the even thought of my roommate and I getting together, cause it is completely ridiculous.

She claims she doesn't have a porblem trusting me, and it's not so much that she thinks my roommate and I will hook up so to speak, but more so she just thinks it's wrong. This from the girl who talks about how essentially all her friends are males and only hangs out with males yada yada. I asked her if she'd ever consider living with one of them (pointing out the one or two who are closest to her) and after a minutes consideration she said "no".

Even at the end of our long talk, I still felt as if we'd made no progress, and she's still very bothered by this. She chalks it up to "that's just how I was raised" but that's generally not good enough for me. As a friend of mine pointed out "you need to form your own opinions on these things and not just reguritate your parents' ". I would tend to agree.

I'm at a loss for what to do. I am a firm believer in everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I'm not about to try to change hers. But I also don't know what else to do to help her accept that this is my living situation and that's how it is going to be for almost the next year.

I worry that her seemingly rather conservative values are going to lead to the demise of our relationship.

Whew that was long. Congratulations if you read it all.

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"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever."
- Napoleon Bonaparte