The scorecard went up in January. Nobody called a meeting. Mia just stuck a piece of paper to the fridge with a magnet that looks like a lemon and wrote HEIGHT / EXIT / TEA / VIBE across the top like she was doing inventory.
Sophie added a column for noise before I even saw it. I added one for whether they put the loo seat down. Democracy, innit.
Last night’s got a 6. Harsh. Also fair. He was tall enough. He left before Sophie’s alarm. He did not make tea. He did ask where the glasses were and then used a mug anyway. That knocks you down. We are not running a hotel. We are running a flat with opinions.
How this started, which is to say badly
It started because Mia brought home a man who used our good oat milk and then sent a voice note from the hallway asking if he could “pop back for his lighter.” Sophie said if we were going to keep collecting strays we should at least grade them. I thought she was joking. She was not. Sophie does not joke about the fridge.
The first one I brought in after the chart went up scored a 4. I still think about that 4. He was fit in the dark and mid in the kitchen. He left at 11.40 which is a coward’s time. Too late to be a night, too early to be a gentleman. No tea. Talked about his startup while looking for his socks. Mia wrote “founder energy” in the notes and underlined it twice. I dated the column so I could not pretend it was a different week.
Look. I know this is unhinged. I also know it has improved the quality of my decisions by about twelve percent. You behave differently when you can already see Sophie standing there in a robe, pen in hand, waiting to ask if he rinsed the mug.
The categories, because people will ask
Height is not shallow if you have lived with two other women and a ceiling that makes tall men duck. We are not asking for a basketball team. We are asking whether he looks lost next to the extractor fan. Last night’s was fine. Six two if he was telling the truth, which men rarely are about that. Call it a 7 in the height box and move on.
Exit time matters more than people admit. Before 8am is efficient. After 9.30 is a brunch guest who has not been invited. The sweet spot is 8.15. Shoes on, door soft, no big speech in the hallway. Last night’s left at 8.07. I will give him that. He even double checked he had his keys. Competence is attractive until you remember he still did not boil the kettle.
Tea is the moral category. I did not invent that. Sophie did. If you sleep here, you can put water in a mug. You can ask who takes what. You can not stand in our kitchen like a visitor at a showhome. He said he “doesn’t do caffeine before work.” Then he left and bought a coffee on the corner. I saw the story. That is a 2 for tea. Maybe a 1. Mia wanted to give him a zero. I said zeros are for men who finish the milk. We have to keep some perspective.
Vibe is the messy one. Chemistry, manners, whether he laughed at the right bits, whether he treated the flat like a set or a place people actually live. He was charming at 1am and slightly beige at 7. That is most of them. I wrote 6 and did not look at Sophie when I did it.
Last night, since you came for the gossip
We met at a bar that thinks candlelight can hide a sticky menu. He was there with people I half know. The sort of group that keeps saying they are “heading off soon” and then orders another round. I was not hunting. I was bored in a nice way. There is a difference.
He asked what I was drinking like he had practised it. I told him. He remembered it at the next bar. That is how you get in the door. Remembering the drink is a low bar and most of them still trip over it.
We took an Uber that smelled like someone else’s perfume. He paid. I clocked it and did not make a speech. At the flat he took his shoes off without being told, which put him on a 7 before anyone had even found the scorecard. Then he whispered in the hallway like Sophie is a Victorian aunt and not a woman who has heard worse through the wall for two years. I almost respected it.
The sex was good enough that I did not check my phone after. That is my private metric. If I am reaching for Instagram while he is still breathing on my shoulder, it is a 5 and we both know it. I did not reach. So the bedroom mark would have been higher. The kitchen is where he lost the plot.
Morning him was polite and a bit lost. He stood in front of the fridge for too long, which is how he saw the chart. I watched his face do the maths. He laughed. “Is this real?”
I said, “it is the most honest thing in this postcode.”
He pointed at an old 8 from March and asked who that was. I said none of his business and passed him a mug. He still did not make tea. He just held the mug like a prop. That is when I knew he was a 6. Nice. Not staying. Not disastrous. A midweek man with good shoes.
Sophie marks harder than Ofsted
Sophie pretends she is above it and then she is the one who corrects the spelling. She once docked a point because a man said “cheers babe” to her when he did not know her name. Fair. She was wearing a face mask and holding a plant. He still went for babe. Some men see a woman in a doorway and their vocabulary shrinks to one word.
She likes the ones who say good morning to the room, not just to me. She likes the ones who do not comment on the dishes. She really likes the ones who leave and then do not text the group chat by accident. That happened. Once. His name lives in infamy at the bottom of the page with a little sad face Mia drew. We do not speak it out loud. Like a curse.
Sophie gave last night a 6 as well. She wrote “fine. kettle unused. face like he wanted a review.” I told her he is not getting a review. He is getting a blog. Different product.
Mia marks like she is bored at the races
Mia scores on vibes and outfits and whether she would have gone near them herself. She is chaotic and somehow more consistent than me. She gave a 9 in February to a quiet man who made everyone tea and left before sunrise. I still think about him when I am being ungrateful. He never came back. The good ones rarely want a sequel if the flat smells like last night’s takeaway.
She wanted to give last night a 5 because of the mug. I talked her up to 6 with the exit time and the shoes. We argued about it with the fridge door open, which is how all our important conversations happen. Cold air. Petty justice. Someone’s leftovers judging us from the shelf.
Mia said, “6 is generous if he clocked the chart and still didn’t boil water.”
I said, “6 is honest if you heard the headboard.”
She said, “the headboard is not on the rubric.”
I said it should be. We left it. Some categories would get us evicted if they were written down.
Do they know they are being marked
Some clock it immediately. The brave ones lean in and ask what they need for an 8. I tell them tea and an earlier goodbye. They think I am joking. I am never joking about tea.
Some pretend they did not see it. Those ones always saw it. They just want to stay the main character of a night that has already become content. I get it. I do the same thing with worse lighting.
One man offered to add a column for “conversation.” Sophie said no. She said if we start marking chat we will never eat breakfast again. She is right. We would be there until noon awarding half points for people who have read a book.
Last night’s asked if the 6 was “across the board.” I said yes. He nodded like he had been given feedback at work. Then he kissed me in a way that was trying to renegotiate the score. Cute. Too late. The paper was already on the fridge. Ink dries faster than charm.
What the chart has taught me, against my will
The 9s do not always feel like 9s at 1am. They feel calm. They find the cups. They leave you with the sense that the flat is still yours. The 4s feel urgent and then they feel like a stain. The 6s are the dangerous ones because you can talk yourself into a 7 if the weather is nice.
I have started noticing my own patterns. I bring home men who are funny in bars and slightly useless with appliances. I like a story more than a system. Sophie likes a system. Mia likes chaos with good hair. Between the three of us we have built a very stupid, very accurate machine.
Is it mean? A bit. Is it more honest than those “he was such a gentleman” recaps people post with a sunset? Yes. A gentleman who does not make tea is just a man who had a good night and a poor morning. I am done confusing the two.
Also, and this is the part I will not say in the group chat, the chart keeps me from getting attached to a 6 just because he smelled nice. Numbers help when your taste does not.
This morning’s paperwork
I wrote 6 in my own handwriting so I could not blame the girls later. Height 7. Exit 8. Tea 2. Vibe 6. Average 6. Notes: “watch is decent. kettle ignored. asked about the March 8 like he wanted a ranking. do not text first.”
Sophie added “agreed.” Mia added a tiny drawing of a mug with a line through it. That is our filing system. Artisanal. Unhinged. Effective.
He texted at 10.02. “Home safe. That chart is actually funny.” I liked the message and put the phone in the fruit bowl so I would not reply with something soft. A 6 does not get the paragraph. A 6 gets the like.
If you are reading this and you have been in our kitchen, you already know your number. Do not email me asking to be remarked. We do not do appeals. We do tea. Or we do not.
And if you are coming over tonight, boil the kettle. I am easy. The fridge is not.