Some Man Your Boyfriend Is

One day I was running some errands in the morning and, after completing them, I decided to get some early take-away lunch for my boyfriend and me, go to my boyfriend’s place, and eat together with him.

When I arrived at the building where my boyfriend lives, there were some maintenance guys in the stairway. My boyfriend had told me the previous day that the maintenance guys were going to come and check every tenant’s bathroom facilities in case there were any repairs that should be done or something. Apparently, they had just come from my boyfriend’s apartment when I arrived.

I politely greeted them, took my keys — I have my boyfriend’s spare keys — and was about to open the apartment door when one of the maintenance guys shouted, like he was trying to warn me, “Hey, there’s some man in there!” I was very confused, and responded, “Um, yeah, he lives here?” and then I just went inside.

But I’m still confused to this day. What the heck was that? I don’t even live in the building and the apartment belongs to my boyfriend! I mean, sure, they couldn’t have known that, but was it really that weird of a concept for him to think that people might live together or just visit each other?

In Finland, it’s also very common to live together with your boyfriend or girlfriend even if you aren’t married, so I don’t think it was about that, either. Also, my boyfriend and I are both adults — around 26 — so it wasn’t like I was a tiny schoolgirl who was entering some shady old man’s apartment. Even after three years, this situation confuses me.