Storytime: How I Got So SMRT About Dealing With Nutbags
To get smart about nutters, you have to start off young and naive and full of the milk of human kindness and all that soppy stuff. And then deal with nutbags who show you this is not good, survival-wise. In other words, sometimes, if you are a type of person who prefers to learn from experience, then in order to learn that fire is hot, you have to get a blister.
First post-college roommate = BAD, BAD, BAD. Possibly crazy.
I delighted in living all by myself my junior year in college, and had a great roomie (a Japanese exchange student) my senior year.
I delighted even more in living on my own post-college, though money was often tight. I worked three jobs. I made friends with co-workers.
One was a seemingly normal guy. Well and good. We got along fine, and I didn't sense any romantic interest from him at all. Even better, as that wouldn't have been reciprocated. We chat about interesting stuff. We coexist peacefully. He seems to be pleasant, literate and genteel. I start to consider him a good friend.
The economy SUCKS at the time, and the three crap jobs are wearing me down. I can't get a single job that is relevant to my interest or either of my BA degrees. I joke about moving to Las Vegas to work in casinos and travel, as I'm young and my current situation isn't exactly ideal. I am not serious about it.
My guy friend is taken with the idea and starts talking about it a lot, egging me on, thinking up plans. Being, it seems, supportive.
I start to actually consider it seriously. Why not? What is holding me back? If I do get a "real" job, I will never have this chance again.
He then says he'd like to go with, we can share rent and expenses.
Again, why not? Two people with a common goal who get along so well? Seems like it could work out.
And things go fairly swimmingly for a couple of months. We do go to Vegas (actually, Boulder City first) and we do get jobs. We do travel. We do share expenses. He doesn't lay a finger on me. We get on like a house afire. It's a super fun adventure. All is well.
Guy friend, however, starts to tell me more and more about his youthful misdeeds, and they sound more like symptoms of sociopathy (harming cats, pissing on hot spotlights to shatter them, being an all-around gobshite with a superiority complex, you name it). When I comment, worried, about them, he backpedals and claims to be joking. But I remember, and wonder. These aren't funny jokes.
But he's still being pleasant, and platonic, and most of the time he's a pleasure to hang out with. All is still well.
There is one fly in the ointment. Guy friend has a raging case of psoriasis, and the dry heat in Vegas isn't helping. He's itchy. He's crabby. He's eventually less and less pleasant to be around. I start avoiding him when he's scratching at himself. This works out fine.
He then develops a fascination with what, to me, looks like a cult in Boulder City (Vernon Howard's New Lifers). I check it out, feel skeeved. They do have great potlucks. (I discussed this in a long chain of comments for an earlier entry and thus won't bore you or go into too much repetitivedetail here, nor do you need a rehash of my time in Vegas, dodging determined $cilons tracking me down a work and trying to sell me copies of Dianetics. It's too tedious to recap, frankly.)
Roomie really digs the New Lifers. Then, over the next few weeks or so, he starts cracking around the edges and showing poor impulse control, having unacceptable temper tantrums, raising his voice, and, worst, acting possessive of me.
I'm not liking this.
I think about things, sense trouble brewing, and decide that going back home soon is probably a good plan. I don't say WHY I want to cut the travel adventure short. He agrees. This is good, because I no longer have my own transportation (a long and awful story in and of itself). I would have to stay longer if he hadn't agreed it was time to bail on this Wild West thing.
Last trip we take, which is part of our trek home, we go through Yosemite to see a friend of mine in Sacramento and to see San Francisco. It's fucking hot as balls. Male friend is extra-itchy and extra-bitchy. At some point, deep in the heart of bear territory and far from civilization, he has the temerity to complain about my outfit. I tell him that I like how I'm dressed. Other people compliment me on my taste. I suggest that it is none of his business what I wear. He TAKES A SWING AT ME, spouting comments about how men are supposed to control women, it's natural law, blah blah blah psychotic-cakes. Say what?! He accidentally-on-purpose catches one of my hoop earrings (I've since mostly lost my taste for these) and this manages to tear my piercing rather noticeably. Youch. I'm lucky my earlobe wasn't split all the way through. I am livid, but I am also now scared. I have to spend at least another three days in a vehicle with someone who is acting bizarre. I consider other options (and in hindsight, I see a lot of solutions that simply didn't occur to me at the time), and feel trapped.
In Sacramento, I manage to have a private talk with my friend (not easy, as Nutbag has taken to having fits of paranoia whenever I am out of his sight for more than ten minutes) and ask for a second opinion. She notices the sketchy behavior and we agree to keep in touch while I head home, just in case. We look up useful helpline numbers. I steel myself for battle...but it never comes.
He mellows out, I touch base with my friend on the way home, things run smoothly. He apologizes profusely for his bad behavior. He is contrite and ashamed. He blames the psoriasis. He needs someone to share expenses with, still. He will not ever, ever behave like that again. There may have been tears and begging.
Then I'm an idiot, as, at this point in my life I still believe people are basically good and entitled to one fuck-up before being written off, and I also believe his pack of excuses and justifications. (Learn from my mistake.)
Actually, in the beginning, once we are back home, he DOES straighten up. I looked at roomie ads, find no one suitable. I look at houses for rent, find one I can ALMOST afford on my own, provided I do some basic sprucing up chores like sanding floors and painting trim in exchange for a break on rent, and I agree to this deal with the owner...and my Guy Friend gets wind of this and begs to share it. I reluctantly decide that this might be okay. He is far more handy with a tool than I. It might work out.
But I'm on alert for the next episode of bad behavior.
For months, all is well. I get another job, I make new friends, and, eventually, have some of them over. Some of them are male and we're feeling each other out, wondering if dating might be cool. It's normal early-20's social behavior. Roomie and I rarely interact. When we do, it's civil.
But weird stuff begins to happen.
The only bathroom in the house is upstairs. On more than one occasion, I have friends over and everyone is having a blast, and I go up to use the facilities, and five minutes later I come down and my friends are bailing, and my roommate is innocently sitting there minding his own business. Supposedly.
The next day at work, formerly flirty male friends are acting skittish and formal. Female friends are less chatty. I wonder what the hell I've done.
A few instances of this and I get fed up and ask a friend what's going on. She says that my roommate has convinced them all that we are an item (he and I) and so now my co-workers think I'm a terrible human being, trying to "cheat" on my nice live-in boyfriend. And right under his nose, too! How awful of me!
This comes as a big surprise to me, because, as noted, I AM NOT dating the roommate.
I have it out with him. I am pissed OFF. He admits nothing, but then starts in with the Man Is God Over Woman bullshit, and gets controlling about my social circle, my clothing, what I eat (NOTE: at this time, I am actually killing myself with a strict vegetarian / no sugar / no preservatives / no anything tasty whatsoever diet at the time, which a doctor later forces me to stop because it turns out I, personally, MUST eat meat protein or die, and Roomie here thought, in his great wisdom, that my no joy diet wasn't spiritual enough and that I shouldn't eat any dairy, either), what I read (non-spiritual trade paperbacks? Bad!), and on and on. You would think that he'd appointed himself as my personal guru. He didn't want to go out and find some poor bint who liked him as he was, nor did he want to try to be remotely attractive to me, he wanted the convenience of shaping me into Ms. Right instead. That was not on.
One battle after another, all week long, most of which end with him declaring that I WILL submit to his Masculine Superiority and give in to my OBVIOUS destiny, which is (apparently, though at least he didn't actually SAY this) to be his barefoot and pregnant girlfriend. Excuse me while I take a minute to go throw up.
I begin locking my bedroom door at night, which required that I learn some ace woodworking skills in a damn hurry so there'd be something sturdy to bolt a lock TO, and I call friends and tell them the gory details and ask them to keep an eye out and drop by unannounced when they could, then I call my family and tell them that things aren't working out for me where I am, and can I move home for a few months? They agree.
If you knew how my family and I typically get on, you know that things looked dire.
Roommate discovers my bedroom door is locked, something that he wouldn't know if he wasn't trying to get into my bedroom without asking first. He has a fierce temper tantrum where he breaks or destroys anything I loaned or gave him and most of his possessions as well. It lasts for hours. He rants, raves, hits walls.
I am well scared.
I end up putting my headphones on to drown him out and he tires of being a raging psychotic dickmunch eventually, as I have not deigned to respond to his crap at all. I open a window and realize I can bolt out of it and land on the porch roof and bail pretty safely that way, if I have to. I'm pissed that I even have to think of such things. There's a new worry brewing as well, that he might try to rape or hit me. I don't think he is capable of it, but I am smart enough to realize it is getting out of hand and I am not going to put up with this bullcrap one second longer than I have to.
I also know that I have a friend lined up to help me move. This keeps me calm and determined. I tell roommate I am moving, during one of his rational phases, and that all the bills and utilities and whatnot that are in my name (all of them) will be turned off on a particular date. He seems to understand, and to even be apologetic for behaving like an utter turd.
What I don't say is that I'm planning to bail ten days prior to the end of the month. I'll pay what I owe, and go.
Roommate ASSUMES that I'm leaving at the last possible moment. This is calculated, on my part. I suspect he'll pull some grand fit to top all previous fits on the last day he has an opportunity to do so. Just a hunch. I start packing. He waffles between being normal-nice and Raging Psychotic Fuckwit Man. I continue to lock my bedroom door and continue to pack and arrange my departure.
On the day of the move, all is well. Five minutes after Roommate heads out the door to work a double shift at a restaurant, a U-Haul that was procured by my friend earlier that day and stashed up the road is relocated to our driveway. My friend is diabetic and can't help much beyond driving a little for me, so I load the entire house, 90% of which is my stuff, into the van by myself. Operation Steal Away In The Dead Of Night is moving along at a rapid pace. I start to breathe easier. A few more boxes and sticks of furniture and I'm gone for good. Roommate is off at his job until at least midnight... or so I think.
He has forgotten an item he needs for work, he got into trouble with his boss for not having it, he had time between shifts to return home to get it, and so he arrives on the scene just as I'm lugging the last of my stuff into the U-Haul and HE GOES APESHIT.
Apeshit = throwing a heavy wood-framed boxspring down the stairs, fully intending to hit me with it.
Apeshit = attempting to kick holes in some of my boxes of stuff.
Apeshit = making me fear for my personal safety.
Apeshit = saying some really violent, profane, obscene, nasty, gross, cruel, terrible (and inaccurate, and crazy) stuff.
Apeshit = sour-graping at me, like I'd care, that he had picked out his "next" girlfriend already and I had lost my golden ticket to his flaky, itchy loins forever (hooray! oh, wait, this is supposed to be bad?)
Apeshit = telling me that the beloved dwarf pet rabbit I'd had before we both moved, and which he swore he'd found a loving owner for, and which he'd talked me into letting him take care of the transfer of ownership of (as I was heartbroken not to be able to take Truffles with me), actually had its brains dashed out against a steel dumpster. (This hurt the worst, and I fear it is true.)
Apeshit = telling me that I was a bad person and had no spiritual maturity whatsoever, and that I was stupid and ugly and untalented and would die alone in an unheated garret and get eaten by Alsatian dogs or something.
Apeshit = who the fuck knows what else. Frankly, at this point, I was tuning him out and looking for a large stick to beat him to a pulp with, but they were all packed.
Luckily, my friend shows up right when I am about to ditch serenity and sureness of purpose and get myself seriously injured trying to beat my Roommate to death with stupid useless crap like a used plastic spork and a mateless high-heeled shoe that fell out of a box he'd just booted open. Now, I could tolerate having shit flung at me and insults, but his gleeful, nasty tale of deliberate bunnicide just crapped all over any Zen calm I might be able to muster. I was out for blood. I'd cried over that little animal for months, missing him desperately, regretting my decision, and this is when I thought he was being cared for and happy.
Note that, at the time, I weighed about 98 pounds, was 5'9", and could have been snapped like a toothpick by a strong breeze. Roommate outweighed me by 100 pounds, towered over me by six inches, and was in a psychotic rage. I would have ended up in hospital.
Not wanting to get caught by my friend while he is being an utter flaming asshole, Roommate departs, muttering. Soon I am gone.
BIG sigh of relief.
A month or so later, I get an apology scrawled on the back of a guest check (waiter food ticket). I do not respond. I worry about how he got my address. I wonder if every person with my last name in my hometown just received a similar letter.
Luckily, I never saw or heard from him again.
Hopefully he's gotten help with those anger issues. But I doubt it.
I was a bit gunshy about male roommates for a good long time after that. I made damn sure that they were not the least bit romantically-inclined towards me (unless we were, of course, dating exclusively for a long time prior to moving under the same roof). Of course, this backfired when we (much later) rented to a repeat rent-dodger who was overtly gay and initially charming, but for the most part it has proved to be a great rule.
One earlobe piercing is still a bit larger than the other. A good reminder, should I ever be tempted to break my own rules again. And now no one is trusted to care of my pets but me. Ever.
I think we've all had bad roomies at one time or another. Share the horror, if you like. I am sure to post more about more of mine in the future. (Thank goodness for nice roomies like
cyanidefish. We had our minor tiffs now and again, but on the whole it worked out great.)
First post-college roommate = BAD, BAD, BAD. Possibly crazy.
I delighted in living all by myself my junior year in college, and had a great roomie (a Japanese exchange student) my senior year.
I delighted even more in living on my own post-college, though money was often tight. I worked three jobs. I made friends with co-workers.
One was a seemingly normal guy. Well and good. We got along fine, and I didn't sense any romantic interest from him at all. Even better, as that wouldn't have been reciprocated. We chat about interesting stuff. We coexist peacefully. He seems to be pleasant, literate and genteel. I start to consider him a good friend.
The economy SUCKS at the time, and the three crap jobs are wearing me down. I can't get a single job that is relevant to my interest or either of my BA degrees. I joke about moving to Las Vegas to work in casinos and travel, as I'm young and my current situation isn't exactly ideal. I am not serious about it.
My guy friend is taken with the idea and starts talking about it a lot, egging me on, thinking up plans. Being, it seems, supportive.
I start to actually consider it seriously. Why not? What is holding me back? If I do get a "real" job, I will never have this chance again.
He then says he'd like to go with, we can share rent and expenses.
Again, why not? Two people with a common goal who get along so well? Seems like it could work out.
And things go fairly swimmingly for a couple of months. We do go to Vegas (actually, Boulder City first) and we do get jobs. We do travel. We do share expenses. He doesn't lay a finger on me. We get on like a house afire. It's a super fun adventure. All is well.
Guy friend, however, starts to tell me more and more about his youthful misdeeds, and they sound more like symptoms of sociopathy (harming cats, pissing on hot spotlights to shatter them, being an all-around gobshite with a superiority complex, you name it). When I comment, worried, about them, he backpedals and claims to be joking. But I remember, and wonder. These aren't funny jokes.
But he's still being pleasant, and platonic, and most of the time he's a pleasure to hang out with. All is still well.
There is one fly in the ointment. Guy friend has a raging case of psoriasis, and the dry heat in Vegas isn't helping. He's itchy. He's crabby. He's eventually less and less pleasant to be around. I start avoiding him when he's scratching at himself. This works out fine.
He then develops a fascination with what, to me, looks like a cult in Boulder City (Vernon Howard's New Lifers). I check it out, feel skeeved. They do have great potlucks. (I discussed this in a long chain of comments for an earlier entry and thus won't bore you or go into too much repetitivedetail here, nor do you need a rehash of my time in Vegas, dodging determined $cilons tracking me down a work and trying to sell me copies of Dianetics. It's too tedious to recap, frankly.)
Roomie really digs the New Lifers. Then, over the next few weeks or so, he starts cracking around the edges and showing poor impulse control, having unacceptable temper tantrums, raising his voice, and, worst, acting possessive of me.
I'm not liking this.
I think about things, sense trouble brewing, and decide that going back home soon is probably a good plan. I don't say WHY I want to cut the travel adventure short. He agrees. This is good, because I no longer have my own transportation (a long and awful story in and of itself). I would have to stay longer if he hadn't agreed it was time to bail on this Wild West thing.
Last trip we take, which is part of our trek home, we go through Yosemite to see a friend of mine in Sacramento and to see San Francisco. It's fucking hot as balls. Male friend is extra-itchy and extra-bitchy. At some point, deep in the heart of bear territory and far from civilization, he has the temerity to complain about my outfit. I tell him that I like how I'm dressed. Other people compliment me on my taste. I suggest that it is none of his business what I wear. He TAKES A SWING AT ME, spouting comments about how men are supposed to control women, it's natural law, blah blah blah psychotic-cakes. Say what?! He accidentally-on-purpose catches one of my hoop earrings (I've since mostly lost my taste for these) and this manages to tear my piercing rather noticeably. Youch. I'm lucky my earlobe wasn't split all the way through. I am livid, but I am also now scared. I have to spend at least another three days in a vehicle with someone who is acting bizarre. I consider other options (and in hindsight, I see a lot of solutions that simply didn't occur to me at the time), and feel trapped.
In Sacramento, I manage to have a private talk with my friend (not easy, as Nutbag has taken to having fits of paranoia whenever I am out of his sight for more than ten minutes) and ask for a second opinion. She notices the sketchy behavior and we agree to keep in touch while I head home, just in case. We look up useful helpline numbers. I steel myself for battle...but it never comes.
He mellows out, I touch base with my friend on the way home, things run smoothly. He apologizes profusely for his bad behavior. He is contrite and ashamed. He blames the psoriasis. He needs someone to share expenses with, still. He will not ever, ever behave like that again. There may have been tears and begging.
Then I'm an idiot, as, at this point in my life I still believe people are basically good and entitled to one fuck-up before being written off, and I also believe his pack of excuses and justifications. (Learn from my mistake.)
Actually, in the beginning, once we are back home, he DOES straighten up. I looked at roomie ads, find no one suitable. I look at houses for rent, find one I can ALMOST afford on my own, provided I do some basic sprucing up chores like sanding floors and painting trim in exchange for a break on rent, and I agree to this deal with the owner...and my Guy Friend gets wind of this and begs to share it. I reluctantly decide that this might be okay. He is far more handy with a tool than I. It might work out.
But I'm on alert for the next episode of bad behavior.
For months, all is well. I get another job, I make new friends, and, eventually, have some of them over. Some of them are male and we're feeling each other out, wondering if dating might be cool. It's normal early-20's social behavior. Roomie and I rarely interact. When we do, it's civil.
But weird stuff begins to happen.
The only bathroom in the house is upstairs. On more than one occasion, I have friends over and everyone is having a blast, and I go up to use the facilities, and five minutes later I come down and my friends are bailing, and my roommate is innocently sitting there minding his own business. Supposedly.
The next day at work, formerly flirty male friends are acting skittish and formal. Female friends are less chatty. I wonder what the hell I've done.
A few instances of this and I get fed up and ask a friend what's going on. She says that my roommate has convinced them all that we are an item (he and I) and so now my co-workers think I'm a terrible human being, trying to "cheat" on my nice live-in boyfriend. And right under his nose, too! How awful of me!
This comes as a big surprise to me, because, as noted, I AM NOT dating the roommate.
I have it out with him. I am pissed OFF. He admits nothing, but then starts in with the Man Is God Over Woman bullshit, and gets controlling about my social circle, my clothing, what I eat (NOTE: at this time, I am actually killing myself with a strict vegetarian / no sugar / no preservatives / no anything tasty whatsoever diet at the time, which a doctor later forces me to stop because it turns out I, personally, MUST eat meat protein or die, and Roomie here thought, in his great wisdom, that my no joy diet wasn't spiritual enough and that I shouldn't eat any dairy, either), what I read (non-spiritual trade paperbacks? Bad!), and on and on. You would think that he'd appointed himself as my personal guru. He didn't want to go out and find some poor bint who liked him as he was, nor did he want to try to be remotely attractive to me, he wanted the convenience of shaping me into Ms. Right instead. That was not on.
One battle after another, all week long, most of which end with him declaring that I WILL submit to his Masculine Superiority and give in to my OBVIOUS destiny, which is (apparently, though at least he didn't actually SAY this) to be his barefoot and pregnant girlfriend. Excuse me while I take a minute to go throw up.
I begin locking my bedroom door at night, which required that I learn some ace woodworking skills in a damn hurry so there'd be something sturdy to bolt a lock TO, and I call friends and tell them the gory details and ask them to keep an eye out and drop by unannounced when they could, then I call my family and tell them that things aren't working out for me where I am, and can I move home for a few months? They agree.
If you knew how my family and I typically get on, you know that things looked dire.
Roommate discovers my bedroom door is locked, something that he wouldn't know if he wasn't trying to get into my bedroom without asking first. He has a fierce temper tantrum where he breaks or destroys anything I loaned or gave him and most of his possessions as well. It lasts for hours. He rants, raves, hits walls.
I am well scared.
I end up putting my headphones on to drown him out and he tires of being a raging psychotic dickmunch eventually, as I have not deigned to respond to his crap at all. I open a window and realize I can bolt out of it and land on the porch roof and bail pretty safely that way, if I have to. I'm pissed that I even have to think of such things. There's a new worry brewing as well, that he might try to rape or hit me. I don't think he is capable of it, but I am smart enough to realize it is getting out of hand and I am not going to put up with this bullcrap one second longer than I have to.
I also know that I have a friend lined up to help me move. This keeps me calm and determined. I tell roommate I am moving, during one of his rational phases, and that all the bills and utilities and whatnot that are in my name (all of them) will be turned off on a particular date. He seems to understand, and to even be apologetic for behaving like an utter turd.
What I don't say is that I'm planning to bail ten days prior to the end of the month. I'll pay what I owe, and go.
Roommate ASSUMES that I'm leaving at the last possible moment. This is calculated, on my part. I suspect he'll pull some grand fit to top all previous fits on the last day he has an opportunity to do so. Just a hunch. I start packing. He waffles between being normal-nice and Raging Psychotic Fuckwit Man. I continue to lock my bedroom door and continue to pack and arrange my departure.
On the day of the move, all is well. Five minutes after Roommate heads out the door to work a double shift at a restaurant, a U-Haul that was procured by my friend earlier that day and stashed up the road is relocated to our driveway. My friend is diabetic and can't help much beyond driving a little for me, so I load the entire house, 90% of which is my stuff, into the van by myself. Operation Steal Away In The Dead Of Night is moving along at a rapid pace. I start to breathe easier. A few more boxes and sticks of furniture and I'm gone for good. Roommate is off at his job until at least midnight... or so I think.
He has forgotten an item he needs for work, he got into trouble with his boss for not having it, he had time between shifts to return home to get it, and so he arrives on the scene just as I'm lugging the last of my stuff into the U-Haul and HE GOES APESHIT.
Apeshit = throwing a heavy wood-framed boxspring down the stairs, fully intending to hit me with it.
Apeshit = attempting to kick holes in some of my boxes of stuff.
Apeshit = making me fear for my personal safety.
Apeshit = saying some really violent, profane, obscene, nasty, gross, cruel, terrible (and inaccurate, and crazy) stuff.
Apeshit = sour-graping at me, like I'd care, that he had picked out his "next" girlfriend already and I had lost my golden ticket to his flaky, itchy loins forever (hooray! oh, wait, this is supposed to be bad?)
Apeshit = telling me that the beloved dwarf pet rabbit I'd had before we both moved, and which he swore he'd found a loving owner for, and which he'd talked me into letting him take care of the transfer of ownership of (as I was heartbroken not to be able to take Truffles with me), actually had its brains dashed out against a steel dumpster. (This hurt the worst, and I fear it is true.)
Apeshit = telling me that I was a bad person and had no spiritual maturity whatsoever, and that I was stupid and ugly and untalented and would die alone in an unheated garret and get eaten by Alsatian dogs or something.
Apeshit = who the fuck knows what else. Frankly, at this point, I was tuning him out and looking for a large stick to beat him to a pulp with, but they were all packed.
Luckily, my friend shows up right when I am about to ditch serenity and sureness of purpose and get myself seriously injured trying to beat my Roommate to death with stupid useless crap like a used plastic spork and a mateless high-heeled shoe that fell out of a box he'd just booted open. Now, I could tolerate having shit flung at me and insults, but his gleeful, nasty tale of deliberate bunnicide just crapped all over any Zen calm I might be able to muster. I was out for blood. I'd cried over that little animal for months, missing him desperately, regretting my decision, and this is when I thought he was being cared for and happy.
Note that, at the time, I weighed about 98 pounds, was 5'9", and could have been snapped like a toothpick by a strong breeze. Roommate outweighed me by 100 pounds, towered over me by six inches, and was in a psychotic rage. I would have ended up in hospital.
Not wanting to get caught by my friend while he is being an utter flaming asshole, Roommate departs, muttering. Soon I am gone.
BIG sigh of relief.
A month or so later, I get an apology scrawled on the back of a guest check (waiter food ticket). I do not respond. I worry about how he got my address. I wonder if every person with my last name in my hometown just received a similar letter.
Luckily, I never saw or heard from him again.
Hopefully he's gotten help with those anger issues. But I doubt it.
I was a bit gunshy about male roommates for a good long time after that. I made damn sure that they were not the least bit romantically-inclined towards me (unless we were, of course, dating exclusively for a long time prior to moving under the same roof). Of course, this backfired when we (much later) rented to a repeat rent-dodger who was overtly gay and initially charming, but for the most part it has proved to be a great rule.
One earlobe piercing is still a bit larger than the other. A good reminder, should I ever be tempted to break my own rules again. And now no one is trusted to care of my pets but me. Ever.
I think we've all had bad roomies at one time or another. Share the horror, if you like. I am sure to post more about more of mine in the future. (Thank goodness for nice roomies like
cyanidefish. We had our minor tiffs now and again, but on the whole it worked out great.)