I am the third wheel. I live with my best friend and his girlfriend in a small apartment beside the train tracks. Next September we are set to move into another. I am the third wheel and somehow I manage to forget the fact. She was my friend before she was his girlfriend, so I forget that they have a thing, that they are a Thing – the sort of thing that gets capitalized in print and italicized out loud and flowers delivered in the afternoon. Jokingly I say, “For me?” The assumption is that living with a couple is awkward. Maybe it is and I just lack the social acumen to recognize the thing sitting across the kitchen table from me for what it is, a relationship. Likely, but if you gave me the benefit of the doubt I would make the case that the dynamic has its advantages. Trust me: I do know what I’m doing. 1. The food or, more accurately, meals. Mealtimes are some of the few times during weekdays that they can spend together, and my roommates at least spend them over the stove or around the table. Partially that’s just their culinary tilt, and it would exist regardless of if they were dating. But stick three foodies together in a kitchen and there is no guarantee that you’ll wind up with one great meal or three. Make two of the three a couple, on the other hand, and there is incentive for collaboration. They want to share food, and I am content chopping vegetables or brewing coffee so long as one third of that omelette is mine and the lights don’t dim. 2. The company. It is a truth universally acknowledged, that once a man ceases to be single he also ceases to spend much time at his own apartment, unless his name is Fitzwilliam Darcy and he just happens to have a large estate in Derbyshire to which he can retreat and brood. I promised my roommate I wouldn’t publish his name, though I can safely establish that it isn’t Fitzwilliam. I know I would see him significantly less often if she wasn’t always over. 3. The attention and the lack thereof. Because I spend so much of my time living alongside a couple of more than two years, it is painstakingly obvious when I’m single. More so, I would argue, than it would be if I wasn’t living with them both. The upside is that finding dates for me to go on becomes a sort of household pastime in a way I don’t think it would were one of these things not so unlike the others. I’m not making any objections. The other side of that coin is that when I do need time to myself I’m sure I can find it. I can close the door to my room and feel confident the two of them will be able to entertain themselves without me. They could probably accuse me of invading their privacy more often than I could charge them with impinging on mine. Before I returned from abroad in March, my roommate posted a gif on my Facebook wall of Jerry, George and Elaine from Seinfeld all dancing and I think Larry David’s screwy creation might be the perfect way of encapsulating our bizarro relationship. Our subletter last fall was a Kellogg student who made entrances evocative of Kramer. Ergo, if nothing else, I am collecting material for my own future hit sitcom. I serve a purpose for them, too. I ground them, or so they tell me from time to time. Until the day comes when they no longer need that, I will revel in the benefits our peculiar dynamic provides me. I have at least 12 more months. Peter Larson is a Medill junior. He can be reached at [email protected]