I’ll check how people actually moan about flatshare dates online, then write the piece in Els’ voice as clean WordPress HTML.“`html

Please Stop Bringing Dates Into The Kitchen

Kettle on. Someone half dressed. My cereal in the crossfire.

I live here. I work early. Your new friend does not need a kitchen tour at ten to seven while I am trying to look like a person who deserves a promotion.

I am not the flatmate who clutches her pearls. I have brought people home. I have done the walk in last night’s makeup and this morning’s attitude. I am not asking anyone to live like a nun. I am asking for the kitchen to stop being treated like an annex of your bedroom.

The scene I am tired of walking into

You know the one. I come out in a hoodie that has seen better days, phone in one hand, already doing the rota in my head. And there he is. Or she is. Bare legs, someone else’s t-shirt, holding my mug like they pay council tax.

Nobody knows where to look. I do the polite smile that is not polite. You do the little laugh that means please be cool. The date does the nod of a person who has just realised this flat has more than one adult in it.

Then someone offers tea. In my kitchen. With my bags. While I am late.

That is not hospitality. That is a hostage situation with toast.

I am allowed to have a life. So are you.

Let’s get this bit out of the way before anyone starts calling me bitter.

I like sex. I like nights that do not end at my front door. I am not going to pretend I am above it. If you have clocked this site for five minutes you already know that.

The issue is not that you pulled. Good for you. The issue is geography.

Your room is yours. The hallway is a grey area I can live with. The kitchen is shared. It is where I eat before a twelve hour shift. It is where I keep the milk I wrote my name on like a child. It is not a lounge for a stranger who still has last night in their hair.

There is a difference between living with two mates and running a walk-in breakfast club for people who do not know my name.

Why the kitchen hits different

Bedrooms have a door. Kitchens do not, not really. You can close it. You cannot unsee what you have already seen.

I do not need a full introduction to the person you met at midnight. I do not need to hear how they take their coffee. I do not need them opening cupboards like they are house hunting.

And I definitely do not need to make small talk while I am putting on the face I use for work. Makeup in a shared kitchen, with an audience, is a special kind of hell. I check the mirror enough as it is. I do not need a stranger watching me do it over a bowl of cereal.

There is also the practical stuff nobody wants to say because it sounds unsexy.

I do not know this person. I do not know if they locked the front door. I do not know if they are still here when I leave. I do not know if I am going to come home to a man on the sofa who thinks last night bought him the WiFi password.

That is not me being dramatic. That is me living in London with two other people and a lock that only works if someone actually turns it.

The morning after is not a meet the family

If they stayed, fine. Get them a glass of water. Get them out of the communal bit before the house wakes up, or at least warn the group chat.

A warning is not a confession. You do not have to write a thesis. “Someone stayed, they will be gone by eight” is enough. I can put a bra on. I can not walk out looking like I have been burgled by my own life.

What I cannot do is perform hostess for a person I did not invite, while I am trying to get to the warehouse looking like I have my act together.

I have a degree and a job that still underestimates me. I do not need to start the day explaining to a half naked man that the Crunchy Nut is mine.

The group chat exists for a reason

We already have a chat that is 40 percent bins, 40 percent whose turn it is to buy washing up liquid, and 20 percent voice notes at 1am that should have been a text.

Use it.

If you are on the way home and it is not just you, say so. I do not need details. I do not want details. I want the option to stay in my room and eat biscuits like a raccoon instead of walking into a meet cute I never auditioned for.

After is worse than during. After is when the resentment starts. Nobody wants to be the flatmate who writes a manifesto. We just want not to be ambushed next to the kettle.

I have been the problem too

I am not writing this from a moral high ground. I have done the loud key in the door. I have done the whisper that is not a whisper. I have had someone in my room and thought, briefly, that the rest of the flat had vanished out of respect for my good time.

They had not.

One of them made tea the next morning like a saint and did not make eye contact. I owed her wine. I still do, probably.

Thin walls. Worse timing. The kitchen is where it all becomes real because that is where people go when they want to feel normal. Toast is normal. A stranger in pants is not normal at 6:40 on a Wednesday.

So yes. I have been messy. That is why I am allowed to say it. I know exactly how easy it is to forget there are other lives happening on the other side of the fridge.

What I actually want

Not a ban. I am not your mum.

I want the shared bit to stay shared. I want to make coffee without negotiating around someone else’s date. I want my food left alone. I want the door locked. I want a heads up if the flat is going to contain an extra body in the morning.

If they need water, take it to your room. If they need the loo, that is what the bathroom is for, and even that is a negotiation in this place. If they need breakfast, there is a Tesco. It is open. It has seen worse than last night’s eyeliner.

The kitchen is for the people on the tenancy. That is the whole point of a tenancy.

A rule that is not a sock on the door

We are 30, not 19. We can do better than a sock.

• If someone is staying, say it in the chat before you fall asleep.
• Keep them out of the kitchen until the house is actually up, or until they are leaving.
• Do not offer them food that is not yours.
• See them out yourself if they are going before work. Lock the door.
• If you made a mess at 2am, it is still there at 7. Clean it.

That is not a constitution. That is basic manners with central heating.

And if you are the date reading this, hi. You seem fine. You do not need to introduce yourself over my cereal. Put some clothes on, take the hint, and let me have my kitchen back. I have a shift. I have a face to put on. I have no interest in being the third person in your morning after.

Live your life. Just not on my counter.

Bring people home. Be loud in your own room. Be happy. Be filthy. Be whatever got you through the door at 1am.

Then remember three other people’s mornings start in that kitchen.

I will be the fun flatmate at the weekend. I will laugh about it later. I will not be charming at 6:50 while a stranger is holding the milk and asking if we have oat.

We do not have oat. We have a rota, two friends, and one kettle. Use your room.

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