(no subject)
I just had the most awkward interaction with my roommate Gena.
Tim and I were hanging out in the living room watching Stargate Atlantis, and she poked her head in to ask what we were watching, and to be included in the social scene. So I threw her a liferaft and paused the teevee to ask her about her day, and she immediately gushed- the poor girl's been alone all day near as I can tell, and she really wanted to talk.
So while we were talking she starts bringing up how depressed Donnie (other roommate, her boyfriend, my friend) has been, and I agreed and we talked about it for a while. And she was mentioning that he needs something to get him motivated and moving, and I told her I'd be willing to start going to the gym with him 3-5 days per week (because honestly I need to go too, and he's a good friend and I want to help him feel better). So she said that'd be awesome, and I told her (because I wanted to get off the subject of Donnie's depression which was clearly making my roommate Tim less than comfortable, because he hadn't said anything in long minutes and was staring sullenly at the paused television [he's awkward talking about non-manly things like emotions and depression]) that if I did this for her I'd want her to hook me up a girlfriend of hers (not a specific one, just a proposition because I wanted to turn the situation lighter).
So Gena tells me that she doesn't think that would work, because she figured I'd go for older girls and she only knows people who are aged 22-24, so I said "Okay, I might change it to something else later."
She froze up. She told me that she wasn't willing to agree to doing something that I hadn't specified.
This hurt (because the normal 'hey we're just talking and joking around' reaction would've been to say 'Sure' regardless of whether or not she'd actually do it), but I still tried to be playful and get her to agree to an IOU. And she wouldn't.
Around now things started to get weird. Tim was quiet again. I started looking for ways to back out of the conversation that weren't 'Ok fine I won't ask for anything' because that seemed like a bad way to end it, and it's a fairly standard social contract (especially when I really wouldn't ask for anything) to do a little 'you scratch my back, i'll scratch yours'. So I took things to a slightly more awkward level and said 'You don't trust me. Come on, I wouldn't ask for anything that you wouldn't want to give.'
She still said no, she wouldn't agree to anything unless I specified exactly what it was so she could know whether or not she'd agree.
I was dumbfounded. We'd just had an overly-long conversation about how depressed Donnie is and how much she wants him to be happy and active, and I knew from personal experience that when Donnie and I were going to the gym regularly we were both happy and witty and funny, and that's the time in his life when she fell in love with him. And here I was offering to go to the gym regularly with her boyfriend (and I'm terribly lazy, mind), something she tells me she wants so that her boyfriend can regain his confidence and return to being a full participant in their relationship, and I was just looking for an ambiguous bullshit commitment so that we could say 'here here' and I could go back to watching Stargate with Tim and stop having this conversation.
So I ask why she won't just say okay, and she tells me that she grew up in a Baptist community where you would be volunteered to do things you didn't want to do. And I said I understood that, but that I would never ask anything of her that she didn't want to do. And honestly, she could always tell me to fuck off anyway, so it didn't matter. And she said she understood, but she wouldn't give me a commitment.
So at this point, feeling really weird about the whole thing and very saddened that Gena apparently just didn't give a flying fuck about playing or casually joking around or ... well, me, as I interpreted it, I took things to yet a higher level of awkwardness by saying 'Look, all I'm saying is that I'm doing something for you, to help out you by making your boyfriend feel better and help him to be a better guy so that you can both be happier, and all I'm looking for is the acknowledgment that you appreciate it by extending a little offer of "I'll do something for you" in the future, and you know I would never be enough of a jackass to demand that you do something that you wouldn't want to do", to which she replied "Well you should want to do it anyway so why should I offer you anything", and I said "That isn't the point. I just want to know that you appreciate it."
So she said, "Well you don't have to do it."
Sigh. Fuck. This is stupid.
So I just said "Okay, I accept that you won't offer anything".
EDIT: On review, this line was actually, "I look forward to going to the gym with your boyfriend."
She said something after that, and I have a vague memory of her implying that I was being a jerk by looking for compensation, which I just let roll off. I didn't care anymore.
So she turned to Tim, feeling as people do after such an exchange that they need to re-establish their connection to the rest of the social group by establishing a conversation, and they had an awkward sort of banter for a while where Tim was surprisingly willing to engage with Gena because he, like all of us, was feeling weird about how things had gone down, and I just zoned out and occasionally shared in a joke or made some sort of agreeable comment.
And Gena left, and I said to Tim, 'That was weird.'
And he said 'Yes it was.'
And that was the most disappointing thing that's happened between me and Gena in over a year.