Roommates
So I'm dealing with yet another roommate crisis. Apparently I just must be the most horrible thing to live with ever. Ali and I have more or less not been talking since spring break, not a huge deal except for when it comes to communicating about house stuff. I'd approach her, ask what was going on or what I did to make her mad, seeing as I had no clue and she'd yell at me, we'd talk for a few days and then go back to the not talking thing. I'd try to fix what ever I had done wrong after the fights but that never seemed to work. I figured this isn't a huge deal, we have a house with essentially two bedrooms and two living rooms, all we would have to share space wise was the kitchen, bathroom and laundry room/porch.
This for me is a very doable thing as long as she continued to pay rent. The only problem with said plan was that she was still occupying one of the two basement rooms that she lived in when Kate and Brian lived with us. That meant she had her bedroom, the upstairs living room, and a basement room and I had my bedroom. Not exactly fair in this situation. She hardly used the basement room, she just had a bit more stuff to move out of it, which I talked to her about a month or two ago and she agreed I could move it in my spare time. So I did, last sunday. I moved the last of her stuff out of the basement room so I could begin to rearrange the basement and create a living space and a bedroom for me.
Now I wasn't home sunday night, which I'll admit was not the best thing to do after moving the last of her stuff out of the basement, but still not a horrible choice, so she came home to the stuff moved and no me. I get home Monday night after work and shes home, so I go to the basement, gather up my laundry and begin to wash my clothes (I haven't been home a lot in the last few weeks, so it had piled up) and she doesn't come down to talk to me, and I don't make an effort to talk to her (I have given up on trying to talk to her since it always leads to fights, I figure she can come to me). She comes to the door the separates the laundry room from the kitchen when she hears me upstairs, not to talk to me, but to shut it so she is separated from me and whatever I am doing. I kinda shrug it off as a whatever, kinda rude, but the washer and dryer are loud.
I get up the next morning and she has already left the house, a bit of a relief for me in all reality. As I wonder into the bathroom to take my shower I notice that all of her boxes up there are gone. Kinda odd. I finish getting ready for my day and then wander upstairs for some food to find the silverware gone, but replaced with some plasticware we had on hand. Also odd. I decided to peak into the upstairs living room and find that a good chunk of her stuff is gone as well. As best I could guess it looked like she was moving out. This last night when I got home most of her stuff was gone, and this morning even more.
Now seeing as we weren't exactly talking I'm not so upset about her moving out. I'm more frustrated with the fact that next months rent is due in two days and she hasn't told me she's moving. I don't feel like I'm completely unapproachable, a bit stubborn and hard headed yes, but I am rational and reasonable at that. I get that the last six months have been rough on her as she was diagnosed with Lupus (in December) and had her boyfriend break up with her (in January), but things were pretty good until March. So something flipped in her head. I'm not sure what it was but between it, and my adjusting to it, Ali and I have pretty much destroyed our friendship. I'm not going to put all of the blame on Ali because a friendship is a two way street, but I will put forward that I've tried to talk through things and when that didn't work, I minimized my time at the house, and walked on pins and needles when I was home to try to make her feel as comfortable as possible.
I don't get it. Am I really the hard to live with? or that horrible of a person?
I'm going to try living alone for a bit before I go looking for a roommate again. It'll give me time to get the house in order and figure out what kind of roommate I can and want to live with.
This for me is a very doable thing as long as she continued to pay rent. The only problem with said plan was that she was still occupying one of the two basement rooms that she lived in when Kate and Brian lived with us. That meant she had her bedroom, the upstairs living room, and a basement room and I had my bedroom. Not exactly fair in this situation. She hardly used the basement room, she just had a bit more stuff to move out of it, which I talked to her about a month or two ago and she agreed I could move it in my spare time. So I did, last sunday. I moved the last of her stuff out of the basement room so I could begin to rearrange the basement and create a living space and a bedroom for me.
Now I wasn't home sunday night, which I'll admit was not the best thing to do after moving the last of her stuff out of the basement, but still not a horrible choice, so she came home to the stuff moved and no me. I get home Monday night after work and shes home, so I go to the basement, gather up my laundry and begin to wash my clothes (I haven't been home a lot in the last few weeks, so it had piled up) and she doesn't come down to talk to me, and I don't make an effort to talk to her (I have given up on trying to talk to her since it always leads to fights, I figure she can come to me). She comes to the door the separates the laundry room from the kitchen when she hears me upstairs, not to talk to me, but to shut it so she is separated from me and whatever I am doing. I kinda shrug it off as a whatever, kinda rude, but the washer and dryer are loud.
I get up the next morning and she has already left the house, a bit of a relief for me in all reality. As I wonder into the bathroom to take my shower I notice that all of her boxes up there are gone. Kinda odd. I finish getting ready for my day and then wander upstairs for some food to find the silverware gone, but replaced with some plasticware we had on hand. Also odd. I decided to peak into the upstairs living room and find that a good chunk of her stuff is gone as well. As best I could guess it looked like she was moving out. This last night when I got home most of her stuff was gone, and this morning even more.
Now seeing as we weren't exactly talking I'm not so upset about her moving out. I'm more frustrated with the fact that next months rent is due in two days and she hasn't told me she's moving. I don't feel like I'm completely unapproachable, a bit stubborn and hard headed yes, but I am rational and reasonable at that. I get that the last six months have been rough on her as she was diagnosed with Lupus (in December) and had her boyfriend break up with her (in January), but things were pretty good until March. So something flipped in her head. I'm not sure what it was but between it, and my adjusting to it, Ali and I have pretty much destroyed our friendship. I'm not going to put all of the blame on Ali because a friendship is a two way street, but I will put forward that I've tried to talk through things and when that didn't work, I minimized my time at the house, and walked on pins and needles when I was home to try to make her feel as comfortable as possible.
I don't get it. Am I really the hard to live with? or that horrible of a person?
I'm going to try living alone for a bit before I go looking for a roommate again. It'll give me time to get the house in order and figure out what kind of roommate I can and want to live with.