How to Survive FEELING LONELY AND PATHETIC

You swear that your disgust at your roommates’ cute and cuddly relationship isn’t due to jealousy. But let’s be real—if you’re single and living with a couple, you can feel like you’re returning to home sweet hell pretty much every day.

It’s hard to NOT think about how pathetic and miserable you are when you’re constantly accompanied by those other significant others. Every walk to the subway station, every dinner, every “goodnight” is a reminder that they are two and you are one. And this is not a balanced ensemble.

Clearly all waiters and waitresses agree. “Will there be a fourth person joining you tonight?”

If you’re sick of your date being the coat chair, try to put a positive spin on it.

• You have infinitely more elbowroom at the table.
• You can eat as much garlic and onions as you want.
• You don’t have to share your meal… or dessert!
• You at least have the possibility of getting someone to buy you a drink.

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Just try not to let your loneliness take over your life...

How to Survive PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS

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Quiet conversations in the hall, whispering, knowing looks from across the room… you’ve witnessed ‘em all. And sometimes Significant Other #1 and Significant Other #2 are not as stealthy as they think they are. They believe the kitchen is far enough away from the living room to avoid the third wheel from overhearing, but that has proved over and over again to not be true.

“You know how we can conserve warm water? Shower together. And then we’re also saving the environment!” *high-five* There are just some things you can’t unhear.

So how do you cope? My favorite game is to just join in their conversation from the other room (and then laugh at the awkward pause as they realize I have heard everything they’ve been saying). “Yeah! I’d like enough warm water for my shower later, too. Thanks!” Or, “But remember how you ended up in the emergency room the last time you tried that?” This will almost certainly bring their volume down a notch or two.

How to Survive FIGHTS

You’re so tuned into the couple’s dynamic that it doesn’t take a Harvard law degree to figure out when they’re having a fight. You may suddenly become bombarded with Gchat messages of “can you believe he said that?” and “I don’t get why she’s so angry.”  Or The Girlfriend makes a frozen pizza for dinner in a passive aggressive way to avoid interactions in the kitchen. Or maybe The Boyfriend suddenly has a strong desire to finish all of his homework tonight, for the entire semester.

But where do you fit in the debacle? Well, you have a few options:

• To avoid being stuck in the middle you can disappear until the anger sizzles – stay quiet, in your room, and hidden/“offline.” This is not the ideal solution, since it involves you becoming stir crazy and gaining suspicious vampire tendencies, but you may just have to take one for the team. Let them resolve their own issues. 
• You can agree with both sides, secretly. This way each of the Significant Others feels he/she has someone on his/her side. Sometimes that’s all it takes. 
• You can put that one psychology course you took in college to use and help them both to see the error of their ways. (And then maybe they will band together again in their joint hatred of you – problem solved! Sort of.)

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But hey, at least they don’t run around in their underwear 
burning your house down. I hope.