Moving In?

Wow, the facts don't lie. This article will definitely make me reconsider living with someone before marriage or a serious committment. I did like how it went in to the reasons for this. There are a number of factors, namely, the casualness of it all. Its so easy to recognize how someone would move in casually with someone and then get "stuck" when they have joint bills to pay and a cat (or a kid) and you can't remember who bought what tupperware and all the other stuff that goes along with living together. Its especially easy in the gay/lesbian community, since society doesn't take our relationships seriously, its more difficult for us to take our own relationships seriously (I say this tounge and cheek, there are so many people out there, myself included, who are looking outside dominant societal narratives for validation of our relationships.) But for real, it does mess with you pyschologically when you aren't allowed to get married because of the gender of your partner. I think it can really mess with the perameters of a relationship. There's that running joke, "what does a lesbian bring on the second date? A U-haul." Its really difficult to distinguish between "roommate" and "lover" sometimes in the lesbian community. I don't have a ton of personal experience, but there was a time that I basically moved in from my girl?boy?guhboy?friend (its hard for me to say because he started identifying as male right after we broke up, and plans on going on T and getting top surgery and the whole nine yards. Its funny, both of us went from being in a lesbian relationship to being heterosexual right after we broke up. He changed his sex and I changed my orientation...but thats neither here nor there...) Anyway, we moved in together until I could move out of my old house. It was such a terrible idea. We went from newly budding romance to old couple in like 5 seconds flat. And right before we broke up, he started getting tense about me invading his space. It would be so awkward if I had no other place to go. It would have just escalated things. So yeah, I think that moving in should be preceeded by a serious committment. Yeah, it might be a good idea as a trial run before marriage, but should never be "oh...I don't want to find a new place. Let's move in together!"