Hah, take that, roommate!

The BBQ Pit
1

Somehow, if you’re friends with someone from 7th grade, you can’t live with them. I don’t know how this is going to come out, but it just doesn’t work. We split certain things, (2nd refrigerator, microwave, etc.) and I’m not too worried about that. We already have a splitting pattern that we’re satisfied with. I just can’t believe that I have to live 14 more days with this guy.

A mutual friend of ours is moving down to go to school here spring semester. Roommate is all excited about getting to live with him, because I don’t think that he’s very happy with the living arrangements right now, either. Personally, I’d like to live him next semester about as much as I’d like to go eat some rotting cat.

Control freak like crazy. 2 people, each of whom have a TV, so he brings his. For some reason, I have absolutely no say in what happens in the room. I want to watch 2 shows a week. 2. Each is back to back one night a week. (South Park/Drawn Together) For some strange reason, even though I think he doesn’t not like these shows (he usually watches them after I go to bed), I don’t get to watch them.

I brought the only computer in the room, as he didn’t have one to bring down. Usually, I don’t have a problem with him using it. I do, however have a problem with him taking my place on it when I get up for a drink, or simply demanding to be able to use it, and then controlling everything in the room while he does so.

He also eats my food without abandon (unless he doesn’t like it, a tenet that I’ve been trying to exploit lately,) and doesn’t stop when I tell him that it bothers me. Right now, we are listening to… some awful crap. Although he hates all things that aren’t singles from multiplatinum albums, we are listening to some crappy christmas music currently. I know the he probably doesn’t enjoy listening to it, but it does bother me.

IOW, the entire room is under his control for some reason. His shit can be in the middle of the floor, but if mine gets anywhere near where he wants to be, it gets kicked out of the way, or I get told (WTF? I’m not 8 any more!) to move it, very gruffly. The temperature. Oh, Og, the temperature. I woke up at 6:30 the other morning in my boxers, with no blanket or sheet and could not sleep because sweat was pouring out of me like a Play-Doh fun factory when fat uncle Joe steps on the handle when you’re making little stars. Early start on class that day, I guess.

Oh, and he doesn’t drive. Been driving 5 months before he wrecked his car to the point to where he couldn’t drive it home (Yes, I have had a wreck and 2 tickets, but i could still drive my car, and it was the hardest rain I’ve ever seen. He was just being a speeding asshole tailgating a truck on the interstate, and mine are spaced out over 3 years. )

So, yay, I’ll be getting a single next semester. And I plan to love it. Mutual friend of roommate and me: get ready for the time of your life.

2

Ah, yes. I have fond memories of the dorms. My roommate and I were also friends since 7th grade and it was a sad, sad day when I realized I didn’t know her at all before we moved into that little shoebox together.

She had OCD. The girl cleaned her cleaning supplies. I can be a bit of a slob. This was not a good combination, as you can imagine. Everything was her way. Considering I would rather give in than deal with a knock down, drag out fight with someone I shared a teeny tiny room with, I often just gave in to her desires and spent a helluva lot of time in my friends’ rooms. So, it was basically her room, that she so kindly allowed me to sleep in.

Seven years later I look around my very own apartment and think damn, I love living by myself. :smiley:

3

Ahh, this brings back memories.

I happen to believe a computer is a personal possesion. My sophomore roomate felt it was a communal item. I would come home from class to find her IMing her friends. I’d tell her I needed my computer or desk to do homework. She’d snottily inform me that I’d had the computer all night last night, and now it was her turn. Her turn. Using my property.

I also had an OCD neatnick. I’ve never understood why those people feel they have the right to order messier people around. If you want to organize my papers or make my bed, go right ahead. But as long as my belongings stay on my half of the room and I don’t leave anything around to attract ants or smell, keep your issues to yourself and don’t expect to order me around.

Another roommate felt it was perfectly fine for her and her friends to sit on my bed and smoke (both cigarettes and pot) because it was next to the window.

4

Oh yeah, been there.

Totally. You don’t really know your friends until you’ve lived with them. Roomed with one of my best friends from high school my freshman year. I’d thought she was a good kid, a decent sort and a good friend, right? Turns out she was a backstabbing, lying ho who would suck any dick put in front of her (she preferred fraternity dick, though) and leave the door unlocked while doing it, so you can imagine the shows I’d get when walking into the room. Zero class whatsoever.

I got a private room the second I had the chance and never looked back.

5

It’s obviously much easier to live alone, unless you’re lucky or something.

6

So what you’re saying is that there are multiple TVs, one of which is your own, personal TV, and yet he somehow disallows you from watching it? I’m not fully aware of all of the nuances of the situation, but why can’t you just watch your one-hour block of Comedy Central, and if roommate complains, say “sorry, but these are the only shows that I watch during the week, and this is my television, so I’m going to watch them.” If he continues to complain, keep turning up the volume until you can’t hear him anymore.

Password-protect your screensaver and manually set the activation time to one minute if you have to get up from the computer. Or set a user password and log out before you get up. There’re probably some third-party solutions that work even better.

And by “controlling everything in the room while he does so”, I assume that he controls what’s on TV while he’s on the computer? If so, just change the channel. If he complains, say that if he’s going to use the computer, you get the watch whatever you want on TV. If he wants to watch TV, you get the computer back. In short, be a bastard.

Well, he seems to like using your computer, so set a boot password, and tell him that if he continues to eat your food, that he is no longer allowed to use your computer. Follow through with it.

Don’t move it. Instead, every time he kicks some of your stuff out of the way, kick some of his. Or better yet, revoke his computer privileges.

Basically, this guy is used to getting his way, and you don’t seem to be doing anything to prevent him from doing so. Your only leverage seems to be your computer, so use it to your advantage. If he complains, tell him why you’re doing what you’re doing, and exactly what he needs to do to resolve the matter.

7

Tell the teacher on him!

8

No, I forgot to mention in the OP that I had indeed set a password on the “friend” account on my computer (I have 2 user accounts, me and one simply titled “Friend”. I did that at the same point that I started this thread, because I was simply that pissed off at him. I’ve only done this once before, and it seemed to work. For a day. Actually, until I turned his password off.

And no, I don’t have my own TV. What I meant was that when we were both moving down here, we each had a TV that we could bring, and he decided to bring his. Therefore, I don’t get his crazy ownership of it. I could have just as easily brought mine. I was going to buy a TV tuner thing for my laptop and a cable splitter so I could say “Fuck you” and watch it on my computer.

But getting a single is so much cheaper and less stressful than that.

9

You know, They say sex is the quickest way to ruin a friendship, but I disagree - I think living together is.

But really, how much of a pushover do you have to be to let it get to this point? Stop being nice at your own expense and learn to stand up for yourself. Some day, you’ll be working in a fabulous office for a fabulous paycheck and the guy who shares your space is going to pull the same crap. Learn how to deal with it effectively now.

But don’t be a jerk. Read what Joe Random said again. And now again. Nowhere in there does it give instructions on being overbearing or mean. It simply gives good, fair advice on how to stand up for yourself. Memorize it and use it.

10

The Joys of Co-Habitation.

I was lucky. I met a few soon-to-be-friends at a summer-scholastic-camp dealie, and we all ended up at the same university, and we always lived near one another. For the four years I was in a dorm, my roommate was one of them… and for three of those years, we were in a suite type environment (shared bathroom between a room on each side) with the other two. We got along pretty darn well, no horror stories.

Then there was the shared apartment for a year.

I shared the apartment with the two others who hadn’t previously been my roommate. One of them had a cat. I’m allergic. He suddenly developed an interest in Indian arts and crafts - tanning leather in the kitchen. He invited his Indian Culture group over to the apartment to"drum". His stuff had a tendency to creep slowly from his bedroom, like a rolling fog of detritus and junk, enveloping the floor of the common area, no matter how many times it was suggested that some of us liked to be able to safely walk in that common ground.

So, I just started to, when it got bad, pick it all up and place it in his room. After about two months there, I don’t think anyone saw his bedroom floor again. Papers, bits of leather, stray kitty litter from the cat’s box…

Now, I’m no neatnik by any stretch of the imagination… but wow.

(Incidentally, he occasionally has been known to read these boards from time to time, so Hi! wave)

Still a good friend of mine, but I live alone now. If there’s a mess, it’s my mess.

11

I don’t understand this at all. Why don’t you sit on the sofa, and turn the TV on? Does he bitch every time you watch TV? Does he change the channel? Saying, “I don’t get to watch them,” doesn’t really explain what’s going on. And I see that it’s his TV; did you negotiate in some way that the TV counts as communal property?

That’s a real dick move on his part - and I second the call to stick a password on it until he stops kicking your stuff, eating your food, and preventing you (in whatever way he does) from watching TV. What does “controlling everything in the room” mean? That seems like a nonspecific way to address whatever trouble you have with him.

Wait, what? What does this mean? You’re both listening to music that neither of you likes? Who put it on, and why? Why does he set the music agenda in the room anyway?

I’m noticing a pattern here. You keep writing sentences like this: “I don’t get to watch TV. The room is under this countrol. For some reason, I have absolutely no say in what happens in the room. Right now we are listening to . . . .” When you read these over, does anything stick out to you? Because the phrasing is really quite bizarre. " Why don’t you “get to” watch TV? Are you waiting for permission from him? Are you waiting for the TV to turn itself on?

These sentences a give the feeling that you’re at the behest of some kind of larger force. You don’t seem to even fully recognize, at least with your writing (I can’t speak to your mental state) that there must be actions involved here: he is playing music, he is turning off the TV, he leaves his shit all over the floor - these are not just events that occur on their own. He’s performing actions, and you’re clearly not doing a thing to stop him, either.

Good. Seriously, though, you must be completely lacking in assertiveness. You can’t expect him to be a pleasant person to live with if he doesn’t even realize that things he does upset you (or doesn’t care because he knows you won’t say anything.) There is not an abstract larger force operating here that prevents you from watching South Park (especially given that you mentioned your roommate watches it later!) What you’ve written just makes absolutely no sense. Why do you say, “For some reason”? The reason, as far as I can tell, seems to be that you don’t turn the television on and watch. If this isn’t the case, please explain.

12

When I say that it’s under his control, I mean that he is controlling it. As in he is constantly watching TV, (well, he has it on, and gets pissed off if I change it, even if he’s doing something completely unrelated.)

He brought the stereo down, and since I didn’t have one to bring, I respect the fact that it is his.

Most of this problem, I believe, stems from the fact that his mom is too nice. No, I’m not kidding. This guy got everything he wanted as a child, and still does to this day. His mom doesn’t punish him for anything. Actually, I take that back. He got grounded from the computer at their house for a day once. When he got fucking arrested for drugs.

So, he’s proud of the fact that he’s an asshole, and says so explicitly. I don’t quite understand that mindset, but I probably don’t want to, either. I know that one day, though, he will fall flat on his face when his mom stops supporting him.

Examples: He gets his first job at age 18 during the summer. He works about 18 hours a week, which pays for his gas, and other small things. His mom still gave him money whenever he asked. He then quit, and he gets 200 dollars a month automatically so that he doesn’t have to work. More if he asks for it.

His mother knows how he treats everyone (since he pulls the same shit on her) and just doesn’t do anything.

Kid’s gotta be weaned sometime. :confused:

13

Not completely lacking in assertiveness. It’s just that it doesn’t do any good. He will resort to physical violence (Not anything big, he has this weird fixation with boob/nipple grabbing. He needs to be punched in face, because he pisses everyone off with it, but no one will do it. ) to get his way, and if not, will get as close to crying as possible in order to get his way. Just pissed off in general.

The more I read this, I realize how much must be ingrained in his mind from his upbringing. I started this thread just to vent, but now I realize that it’s just been the fact that everyone in his life thinks that him being pissed off actually affects other people in some way.

14

I had good luck with my freshman-year roommate. (I hope she thinks the same of me!) We were just about polar opposites, and we decided right from the start that we were going to loathe each other. But we were both polite and respectful and were pretty careful about avoiding conflict, because we knew from the start that there was going to be some conflict between us.

Other people on our floor who were rooming with their best friends or thought they had found a soulmate in their new roomie seemed happier the first few weeks of the semester . . . but by midterms they had seen the Harsh Light of Reality were screeching at each other like harpies and wailing to anyone who would listen that they couldn’t believe how they had been seduced and then betrayed.

With me and my roomie, it was “shields up” from day one, and that worked quite well.

15

I’m very fortunate to have been the one-in-a-zillion person for whom rooming with a friend worked out.

She and I have been best friends since the seventh grade. It was visiting her at college that made me notice how much I liked UC Irvine, and led to my decision to transfer there from community college. She was living in a two-bedroom apartment with three other people, so when the person she was sharing a bedroom with moved out, I moved in. About a year later, we scraped together enough money to move to a studio apartment together. When that apartment complex started pulling dirty tricks to get people to move out so they could raise the rent (like remodelling apartments while people were still living in them), we moved to a shared bedroom in another house.

All told, we lived together for three years, half of it sharing a tiny studio apartment, and not only do we not hate each other but we’re still very close. The only reason we’re not still living together is that I graduated and moved back to LA for grad school.

Then again, after the drama we went through together in high school – let’s just say we both dated the same guy, who was the first boyfriend for each of us, and there was some “overlap” – we figured if we could go through that and still be friends, we could go through just about anything.

16

I went to a boarding high school, so I had an early experience with roommates. My freshman year roommate was a total stranger (natch) and we didn’t get on so well. My sophomore roommate was my pick – a great guy, level-headed, we liked similar music. My junior year roommate was a new guy from our circle of friends (so that my sophomore year roommate could room with another of our friends). Senior year I took a single so I could have a prefect position on the freshman dorm. Fast forward to college: my junior roommate and I got into the same university. We discussed rooming together, and decided that it would be cooler to develop a broad circle of friends first (if one of us got an asshole roommate, we’d just hang out in the other’s room more, and befriend the cooler roommate). So we each threw our names in the hat.

August comes and we get our assignments in the mail.

“Dear Jurph. This year you will be living with Craig Wossname and Junior Roommate. Be sure to call them and see what interests you all have in common, and what things they will and won’t be bringing so you don’t end up with duplicates.”

Craig Wossname never showed up. Junior Roommate and I drank the case of Snapple that one of the frats dropped off for him as a welcoming gift/pledge bribe. He and I lived together all four years, and he’s going to be my best man in January.

17

My freshman roommate had sex with her boyfriend while I was in the room.

She had other problems, as well, but that one remains the topper.

18

No, no one needs to punch him in the face. Someone needs to report him for assault when he does this. Unless you go to a majorly crap university, Housing takes physical attacks very, very seriously. Or laugh in his face when he does his pouting thing. I’m assuming that you’re both at least 18…ridicule is an excellent tool for behavior modification of big giant babies. Someone needs to yank this guy’s focus back a little and make him realize that just because his mother has absolutely no other concern in the world than to cater to her poor baby’s every whim, no one else in the world is under any obligation to so much as give him the time of day.

This is your FRIEND?! Why? I have to assume that, other than the huge assholeish need to have all of his whims immediately fulfilled or else, he’s an incredible guy, farting sunshine and pissing Jack Daniels, otherwise I can’t see anyone voluntarily being friends with him if he’s as you describe.

19

You know what? I don’t know. I ask myself that sometimes. And sometimes I don’t know.

Maybe he’s bipolar or something, because half the time he’s fine to be around, and the other half, he’s… him.

20

Freshman year in the dorms, I was assigned a roommate who was my polar opposite. Me: Jewish kid from Los Angeles, hated playing sports, never had a girlfriend. Him: Born again Christian form a small town, high school football star, ladies man. We got along great. Some severe family problems caused him to have to drop out of school after that year.

My first year out of the dorms I chose to live with Dave1 who I met in the dorms. We split a two bedroom apartment. We shopped together and split the food. A lot of the time we cooked dinner together. We traded off on paying the bills and just kept a rough track on who owed who what. Everything was fine. This roommate thing isn’t bad at all. We’re still friends.

The next year, Dave1 and I move into a three bedroom house with Dave2. We all go to the market together and split the bill. The next night, Dave2 invites a bunch of friends over and they eat every bit of food that we bought. Dave1 and I were far from neat but Dave2 would dirty up every dish, pot and pan in the house and not wash them. One time I found maggots on one of his plates. Another time I caught him throwing a dish (that belonged to Dave1) in the garbage rather than cleaning it. When he cut himself shaving he would dab the blood on our towels. He would owe us hundreds of dollars each for bills. I could go on and on.

Some people are just selfish assholes. All you can do is avoid them.

Haj