I have a very clear vision of the first time that I met Tobias. I was cooking, and suddenly, he walked in, freshly out of the shower with a towel around his waist.

“Hey, I’m Tobi.” He handed out his hand to shake mine. “I’m your flatmate, nice to meet you.”

“Hey, nice to meet you too. I’m Alessa.”

My first thought was: Damn, he’s hot, and he even has nice hands. I even wrote down in my journal: “My flatmate is very hawt, I hope nothing happens between us. LOL.” I guess you’re wondering where this is going.

            Since the beginning, we got along great. We would laugh at each other’s jokes. We would go together to coffee shops to do university work. We started watching the new season of Money Heist together in the kitchen. He still has my Netflix account, by the way. And every time he would be home, he would yell: “Hey, honey, I’m home.” Nevertheless, I always noticed because he would whistle the whole time. This was still week two. I started suspecting that he had a crush on me as much as I had a crush on him. We would go in front of our flat, The Budapest Music Center, and sit on the step to talk about our pasts and share music. The night that he stayed with me to watch movies because of the creepy guy, we connected amazingly. We stayed up until like 2:00 A.M.  We would hug good night most of the time, which neither of us would do with the rest of our flatmates.

            We had the same group of friends, so we basically were together 24/7. When we all went out for dinner, he would touch my leg with his underneath the table. He was always picking on me, and I teased him back. Whenever we partied together, we would dance, just the two of us, forgetting that the rest of our friends were there. On our way home, we would walk our drunk asses around the streets, pushing and in between laughs, hugging. Everyone could feel the tension and realize that we were into each other, except for us, obviously.

            I got invited to the opening of a photography exhibition and had a plus one, so I decided to invite him. I saw it as an opportunity for us to have quality time and to share how much I loved stories and photography. When we arrived, my friend asked me: “So, are you guys a couple?”

We both looked at each other and laughed. I answered: “Nah, he’s just my flatmate.” For some reason, she found that hilarious.

            We all celebrated Oktoberfest at Margaret Island, crumbled up on a bench with huge beers, and at some point, he bit my shoulder.

“Ouch! What the hell, Tobi?”

“Do you know what it means in France?”

It’s your homework now to google its meaning.

            A week later, we decided to travel to Croatia with our group of friends. It was so much fun. We stayed a few nights in Zadar and did a road trip to Split. We all bonded in a crazy manner, sharing music in the van, enjoying the beautiful landscapes, and getting to know each other more intimately. On our last night, we played cards and got a bit drunk. I decided that was the night that something had to happen. Honestly, I couldn’t take the “innocent” flirting anymore.

I saw him upstairs and I thought he was giving me a hint when he said:

“Hey, I’m about to take a beer in the shower.”

My impulsiveness thought my time had arrived, so I just replied, “Cool, can I join?”

He what the fuck faced me and got into the bathroom. Huh?! What the hell just happened right now. I thought he liked me! Fuck, now he definitely knows that I have a big crush on him. This is so embarrassing. I went downstairs to dance with the rest of my friends and tried to forget about it.

“I think Tobi is asleep, we should wake him up,” one of my friends said.

“I don’t know, man, maybe he’s too tired,” I replied, but I didn’t want to face him after our awkward moment.

“Come on, Alessa, it’s our last night. We’ll just sandwich him.”

So, we went upstairs and jumped into his bed, and started to crush him. He pushed us away and I ended up under his arm. He looked at me and kissed me. My friend left the room. WHAAAAAAT. SO YOU DID LIKE ME, I KNEW IT!!!

            The upcoming days were extremely awkward because he stopped being flirty and started to ignore me. I was beyond confused, so many mixed signals. I give you all one piece of advice:
communication. We made an arrangement and decided to keep our “friendship relationship” secret because we didn’t want to mess up our friendship by making it public or making our flatmates or friends uncomfortable, even though it was really obvious.

            We lived together for approximately six months and it was so much fun and loving, he practically became my best friend. He was the most amazing flatmate ever. I would sneak into his room at night to cuddle or watch movies. We showed each other music videos and stand-up comedies. We were living on our own little planet. He started to become interested in photography, so I mentored him, and went out on photographic dates and shared wine and lots of pizza. Tobi is a very sweet, kind, honest, funny, loyal, smart, and caring person, so I obviously fell for him. I am very
grateful that life made us cross paths in the most random way.

            I am glad that we broke the golden rule of flatmates. It has been one of the best decisions, tap on the shoulder of my impulsive side. Our adventure ended up in us being a couple and we have been together a year and a half. So, the lesson learned is: follow your
intuition. But also, when you appreciate someone, never doubt externalizing how you feel because it might have wonderful, unexpected outcomes. And if it is not the answer that you were expecting, you can always learn something from it.