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FOR LOVE OR PEANUT BUTTER

What Happens When You Move In Together Before Your First Date?

And why would anyone do that?!

Kelly Shanley
Slackjaw
Published in
7 min readOct 9, 2024

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Photo by Andres Ayrton / FLOPB Art by Kelly Shanley

No, this isn’t a Married At First Sight situation, but thanks to Covid, we didn’t get to go out in public until after we already hit some major milestones.

If you’ve been following my column for a while, you know that my partner Zeke and I started dating during the pandemic. If you’re newer here and would like to hear the story of how we started dating, feel free to start here and come along for the ride. (I might be biased but I think it’s a pretty good story.)

Because we started dating during the pandemic, you can probably imagine where we went on our first few dates… The same place we all went for the majority of 2020; the couch! Not only is the couch not romantic, but it feels strangely informal. Not that I require a four course meal at a five star restaurant on a typical first date, but dining and watching a movie on a couch together imbues a type of intimacy normally reserved for established partnerships, romantic or otherwise.

Me on the couch typically looks like this: wearing my comfiest sweats (if I’m wearing pants at all), slouching down into the couch, surrounding myself with pillows, my cat on my lap, and alternating snacking on…

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Kelly Shanley
Kelly Shanley

Written by Kelly Shanley

LA based writer/podcaster/comedian/mountain girl at heart. Outdoor lover, world traveler, loud laugher. https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/kelly-shanley

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