What it’s really like to live in an all-boys house in Lancs as the only girl

To summarise in two words: No drama


Finding and deciding on a house in first and second year is very stressful. You might be asking yourself: “Should I really live with people who I have just met three months ago?” And the answer is, it depends. Once you have gotten to know the living habits of your current flatmates, be sure that you will be able to cope with that for another year.

If you can’t cope with the lifestyles of your current flatmates, be sure to get a house with those who you know well (perhaps those who went to the same sixth form as you). Making the right decision about your future housemates is a crucial one, because ultimately, you’ll be living with them for an entire year and they could make or break your uni year. Just bear that in mind.

If you’re a girl in first year who’s lost about who to live with, here are the reasons why you should choose to live with only guys in second year. Speaking from experience; it’s great!

Boys are not into taking a million group pics at pres

Sorry to break it to you girls, but lads aren’t really keen on spending 20 mins in the corridor, changing poses in order to get the perfect group picture. This is just not an option when you live with boys. They would prefer to take three pictures max and get back to downing the King Cup in Ring of Fire.

Boys aren’t the type to ask “can I post this?” or “which pic would you prefer?” before uploading the pic to Instagram. Instead, they choose one in which they look good, leaving us to hope and pray that we look somewhat decent in the picture. However, some boys don’t have an active social media presence and thus somehow forgot that group pic was taken.

On the topic of pres and going out, us girls need more than 30 mins notice! Lads can get ready 20 mins before we set off on the last 100 bus into town. Not us girls. We need at least three to five working days notice so we can pick an outfit, do our makeup, our hair, and take a few selfies. Then add in the fact that we stress that everything is not going to plan. Lads just seem to shower, put on jeans and a nice shirt and hope for the best.

You get to have your own chill time

This is something that doesn’t exist when you live with girls. Everyday you’d hear a knock on your door from one of your girl flatmates and a quick catch-up would turn into spending the whole day gossiping away. This isn’t the case for when you live with boys.

They gently knock on your door and wait until you physically open the door until they tell you what they need. A simple “Come in” won’t suffice. It’s almost as if they are too scared to come into your room as you could be doing something scandalous (when in reality you’re just in bed watching Netflix).

They are cleaner than you think

Obviously, I can’t speak for all lads, only the ones that I live with. Surprisingly, girls seem to be more messier than lads, not only by having their makeup and clothes sprawled around the house but by also leaving their dirty dishes to pile up for days. Boys, however, seem to clean the kitchen the next day after a heavy night drinking. Everything seems to be back in its place and spotless, ready for the next night of drinking.

You can give them fashion advice and they actually listen

It is common knowledge that if girls were to dress boys, they would look a million times better. Buying lads a nice shirt for Christmas from Primark is always the best idea because they have to wear it, otherwise they’ll feel bad.

Going shopping with lads is a whole different experience than going shopping with girls. Girls walk around shops picking up everything they fancy, go into the changing rooms only to realise that they picked up the wrong size. Yes us girls are different sizes depending on what we’re wearing. Boys don’t seem to have that problem, and you can spend money vicariously through them. Picking up a nice shirt and saying something like “this would look so nice with them black jeans that you have Adam” is a guaranteed buy. If a girl says something like that then it must be true, right?

 Guys are actually really good listeners

Whenever I have a problem (be it a relationship problem or whatever), they are the first people I tell. I can just go downstairs and rant about it and someone will be there, probably not even paying attention anyway but they do give helpful advice. I get answers like “he’s a prick regardless” or “just cut them out of your life”. It’s actually really interesting to  hear opinions from a lad’s perspective and what they’d do in certain situations, so thanks boys.

So, living with boys isn’t that bad. If anything, they are the best people to live with.

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