Living in a shared house with 6 people, I face an identical fate that many a fellow Londoner faces at 7pm. They, like me, remove themselves from the politics of work into an entirely new playing field of mixed characters and upbringings, making both our values somewhat lopsided with one another, causing both distrust, turmoil and in some extreme cases, utter hatred!
Being British, our homes are our castles. We each have a system in place as to how we navigate ourselves around. Some, when they come home from work enjoy nothing more than to climb straight into bed and enjoy an early evening siesta; Oh how I envy such types! Others however; have to feed the kids, get them to bed, crack open a bottle of wine then slump themselves deeply into their DFS sofas, while the evenings fix of crap television literally takes their brains for that much needed dump!
Rather annoyingly I am neither. Instead I come home to a rowdy house of animals, that enjoy nothing more than to treat our home like a nightclub, 24/7. Being the tender age of 32 and living with the such, I enjoy nothing more than to come home, read or write, catch up on work, watch a film and relax. I cook my dinner, do my dishes and I am in my happy place.
Yet I am in a constant battle defending such comforts from the insults of being too old or behaving like a bore fest. I am, to all consenting purposes neither of these things. Yet still, due to the fact that I like my own space, I am ridiculed as a hermit, or an old man. Then, I stand outside of my moderately sized bedroom dishing out a barrage of banterous insults at said heathens, calling them children or immature uncultured swine's, with their fixed geek like love of one musical genre or obsession with one artist or song that blasts out of their Argos stereo speakers. Every. Single. Night.
Our house is huge, yet wasted I feel on those that still live as if they're at University. Of course I know what you're all thinking, why doesn't he move out? Well, I would but rather annoyingly these people are my friends and will no doubt read this article wondering why I've decided to make such an issue so public. Truth is, I'm annoyed at them for being so loud when I'm trying to work or relax, and this is my way of telling them to shut up, despite my best efforts.... frowny face.