8 Ways Growing Up With Sisters Prepared You To Live With Your Girlfriend

Moving in with your girlfriend may happen at some point. And while living with the one you love is a great thing, there’s an unavoidable adjustment period when things can get dicey.

Your apartment is no longer your masturbatory playground. You must relearn things like holding in farts at dinner or actually placing video games back into their cases instead of constructing a wobbly, dusty Jenga tower of scratched discs.

But for those of us who grew up with sisters, this adjustment period can be a breeze! Having lived with women for years, we have a head start on cohabitating with the opposite sex. Here’s how your sisters unwittingly prepared you to live with your current or future girlfriend:

You’re used to hair monsters

While men may be destined to lose their hair over the years, it’s women’s long locks that gather all over the house. They clump together and transform into tumbleweeds of organic matter and drain-clogging detritus.

After sharing a bathroom with your sisters for so many years, you’re accustomed to using your toes like a chimp to remove the spiral of hair blocking the shower drain. You’re seasoned in the art of fashioning a wire hanger into a hook to scoop out hairy sludge from the sink pipes. When you open a door and see something dark and furry moving in the corner, you won’t freak out and think it’s a mouse — you know that it’s a hair bunny gently blowing in the breeze.

That being said, nothing can prepare you for the moment when you’re showering and you find a strand of your girlfriend’s in your butt crack.
You remember to double-check that the straightening/curling iron is unplugged

Every morning you witnessed the superhuman flurry of activity that was your sisters getting ready for school. As you ate your Lucky Charms in a daze, they were whirring through closets, dressers and the bathroom like Sonic the Hedgehog.

In the aftermath, the hair iron was always left plugged in. Since you were likely the last in line for bathroom privileges, you were also the last line of defense to prevent the house from burning down. So when your girlfriend finishes the morning rush to work, you’ll be her lucky charm — ready to unplug.
You put the toilet seat down

Not everything is hair related, I swear. For instance, you’ve developed a Pavlovian response to put the toilet seat down each time you pee after years of getting yelled at for leaving it up. This means your lady will never have to see your drips and curlies on the rim, and it saves you from a nightly verbal smackdown.
You’re not freaked out by period stuff

Tampons, pads, Midol, these things were everywhere in your house. Sometimes you even had to buy some for sis when you were running errands.

Now you stride through the feminine product aisle confidently. You know the brands and the types. At home, you see a tampon in the garbage and it doesn’t even register. We’re all just flesh and blood, and because you know that, your girl will think you’re some super-evolved species of man.
You know how to argue without going overboard

Clashing with your sisters was a delicate dance. It took years, but eventually you learned just how far you could take an argument or prank before it crossed over into “she’s crying and I have to hurry up and defuse the situation before Mom and Dad find out” territory. This Spidey sense developed over the years and now keeps you far away from that tipping point.
You’re immune to the smell of nail polish

Whether it’s because you’re used to it or the odor has singed away your nasal receptors, you can easily sit through your gal’s primping session on the couch. This allows you to offer up side comments like “Oh yes, what a rich shade that is.”
You know how to shave with a women’s razor

It sounds ridiculous, but this is a useful skill. Let’s say you have to shave for work, but you forgot to buy razors, so you grab one of your girl’s. If you had sisters, then you’ve run into this scenario and know that women’s razors catch the hairs at a totally different angle. You know how to adjust for this. But if you’re a noob, you’ll come out of that shave session all bloody and bumpy.
You’ve already heard girls fart

Sorry to out my sisters, but let’s just say the wind breaks for all.