An Alternative Love Story

After her boyfriend leaves, she is left alone at home with a motley crew of cats and dogs. "Pets are important to university students who cohabit," explains Little P, "You can't have real children, so pets fill the void." Holding her cat, the slender Little P comes across as naive and unfeigned, but the moment she speaks, you sense a worldly perceptiveness about her. While living with two successive boyfriends over the past eight years, she has observed friends who have also been living together. As a result, she disagrees sharply with society's stereotypes concerning cohabitation. "Who says sex has to be a part of living together? I have friends who have lived together for three years, but have never had intercourse."

Little P, who began living with her boyfriend as a university student, was a good student, active in school clubs, independent, and not afraid to be herself. She was an outstanding student both in her all-girls' high school and after she and her boyfriend began living together in university. Many of her younger classmates looked up to her. "Frankly, none of my friends looked at me any differently after we started living together. Quite the contrary, quite a few actually sought me out for advice on relationships and cohabitation."

"Just like marriage, however, not everyone is cut out for cohabitation. Finding a suitable partner is no walk in the park either," she continues.

Her boyfriend is out, and Little P stands on the balcony, looking into the distance and wondering about the future. At times like this, her only solace is the cat she hugs to her breast.

From one home to another

Her father has two families and Little P is the daughter of his "side dish." Little P's mother lacks any legal status and only gets to see her "husband" an hour a day. Little P and her brother are lucky if they get to speak with him at all.

Although his family business is thriving, Little P's "prodigal father," as she puts it, hasn't contributed a red cent to their living expenses for a long time. "My little brother was ill when he was eight, but because my mother didn't have a penny to her name at the time, my brother's treatment was put off and he suffered serious brain damage as a result."

Experiences like this have put Little P off marriage and tempered her expectations for love and happiness.

The tender love that she and her boyfriend shared after they moved in together gave her a feeling of home, so not long after they separated, she moved in with somebody else.

In order to keep her family in the dark regarding her living situation, only she was allowed to answer the phone in their tiny Mucha apartment. "We didn't worry about calls from his family, because his parents knew that we lived together."

Despite their being very discreet for fear of her parents--especially her mother, who is very traditional about chastity--finding out, accidents still happen. Her mother, who in the past rarely came to Taipei, had become suspicious, so she came to the city a few years ago all by herself. She rode around in a taxi until she finally found the building in which Little P lived. It wasn't until the building superintendent showed her the list of the building's occupants that she found out that the apartment was rented in her daughter's boyfriend's name.

Her mother refused to listen to their explanations. She raked Little P over the coals. Although money to cover living expenses continued to be mailed to her every month, her mother never again came to Taipei to visit. "I used to try to lie to my mom, but I think she figured it out a long time ago. She just didn't want to face the truth."

The test of sex

Little P and her current boyfriend began renting a room four years ago and the two college students lived off the money sent to them by their families. They shared everything, splitting the rent and living expenses, but lately, they have been bickering constantly.

"Sharing everything" naturally includes each other's bodies. Little P pulls no punches when she admits that sex is an important factor when university students decide to live together. They're "just like regular married couples." And just as it is with regular married couples, your boyfriend's passion becomes a barometer for the relationship. Her boyfriend's enthusiasm hasn't been what it used to be and their sex life has suffered as a result. This has got Little P, who is both sensitive and dependent, deeply concerned.

"We do everything together. You can't expect a guy to maintain the same level of interest in you, but the decrease in sex still hurts."

What's more, the longer you're together, the more glaring become your partner's shortcomings and the harder they become to put up with.

The distance between Little P, who has a long history of depression, and her parents has grown, so she depends a great deal on her boyfriend emotionally. On the occasions when her depression flares up, her boyfriend just bails out and leaves her to deal with her tears alone at home. She is no stranger to the feeling of helplessness.

For a long time, this emotional roller coaster only made her depression worse. Her psychiatrist's warning that "leaning too much on a boyfriend you cohabit with will only drive him away" made her more aware of society's different attitudes toward women who are formally married and those that simply cohabit. Every time she makes up her mind to break it off with her boyfriend, his sweet talk makes it impossible for her to leave. That has been the recipe of their life together.

Fidelity and contradiction

She can't leave him and can't improve the relationship. Talking about her on again, off again happiness in a corner that her mother cannot see, Little P inadvertently reveals the contradictions of a life of cohabitation. "Living together has nothing to do with morals. It simply allows men and women to meet their real needs. It doesn't affect anybody else and it is not a matter of not taking responsibility."

The conclusion that Little P offers for herself and other women living in similar circumstances is, "That said, I don't know what I'm expecting or what I can expect."