posted
- House elves don't work in muggle homes. When you throw trash, used rags, broken car parts, and things like that on the ground or floor, there are no house elves living here who will pick them up. In fact, the person responsible for picking them up is you.
- When you do a job, that job is not complete until you have cleaned up your work area and put away the tools. Borrowing tools is perfectly all right, however, it's considered polite to leave them in the same condition you found them, and put them back where you borrowed them from. If you ever break something you've borrowed, replace it.
- When you borrow someone's tools, do not leave them outside exposed to the elements for weeks on end.
- Another note about house elves, when you cook, there's nobody who lives here whose genetic destiny it is to clean up the food preparation surfaces which you leave covered in goo. Bacteria and bugs will be delighted at the meal you've left for them, but they don't have good table manners. It is a matter of public health and safety that all food preparation surfaces be kept clean of accumulated caked layers of goo. This means before you are done with your cooking job, you must take soap and scrub all the surfaces which have become splattered with food in the course of your cooking, including tiles, cabinets, floors, countertops, the surface of the stove, the knobs on the stove, the stove hood, sides of major appliances, etc. If you spill cheese in the toaster oven, clean it out. If you made a milkshake and chocolate ice cream splatters are all over the walls and under the cabinets, scrub them off. These are things you should notice and look for. This is part of the job of cooking.
- If you use major appliances such as washer, dryer, dishwasher belonging to another person, it is polite to treat them as well or better than you would your own. This means clean out the lint filter, don't put in plastics or other things that will melt and stick to the inside of the dryer. Load the washer symmetrically, and stop and fix it if it begins to spin and the load is off balance. The loud crashing and banging of the washer tearing itself to pieces should be your clue that you need to redistribute the articles in your load.
- Don't develop tunnel vision about mess and dirt. Don't assume none of your activities produce any mess or dirt. Be willing to do your share, or more than your share. It all boils down to the lack of house elves in muggle homes. Find jobs to make your job, and take ownership of them. There are many such jobs that need doing.
Thanks for listening, hatrack! Does anyone have any more suggestions on how to be a good roommate?
posted
I guess the mindset that is mistaken is the idea that all these things are public, free utilities. It's the mindset of someone who grew up in their parents' house and is still mentally living there. Or the mindset of a mountain gorilla who makes a new nest one tree over if he fouls the one he has. It's an innocent way to view life, and it's quite sweet. It just doesn't correspond to reality. The reason we have major appliances is because someone had to buy them, and will have to spend a lot to replace them if they break. The reason our kitchen doesn't look and smell like the bathroom at the shell station on exit 239 is because someone regularly scrubs it and takes out the garbage.
I take it back, we do have elves, though we have to pay for them. They remove twice each week whatever we put inside bags inside cans at the curb, and they are a wonderful blessing for which we usually aren't grateful enough. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Just think about what people are thinking of you as they clean up your filth, and ask yourself if you would rather clean up behind yourself than leave it for someone else to do, unpaid, unthanked, and unnoticed. Maybe it would be good to pay more attention or something.
How do you keep a positive happy atmosphere in your house and deal with issues like these? Should I call a house meeting to discuss these things? On the one hand it's totally not my responsibility to teach someone life lessons that they should have learned earlier. On the other hand, such knowledge is extremely useful in all aspects of life. And on the third hand, I feel no urge in the least to become the personal servant of someone far younger, stronger, and more able bodied than myself.
I really don't like being the heavy, but I don't like the current situation much either. What do I do?
Another thing that I'm aware of is that there may be things I'm oblivious to that I'm doing as well. I would like to find those things out, and resolve them, too, if they exist.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Bacteria don't bother you if you don't bother them. If you wouldn't be so prissy, this conversation would be un-necessary.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
KoM, aren't you in the army or something? Does your sergeant come around and clean up behind you in the barracks? I've heard they are just like moms. That's cool that they are so nurturing like that of our enlisted men. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
This is kind of an interesting subject for me to ponder over, because I do love serving others, and think loving service is essential to the highest expression of humanity.
So perhaps one thing I see is that I shouldn't rob others of their chance to be of service by doing this sort of work.
And there is certainly something degrading about picking up someone else's garbage that they throw down unheedingly, isn't there? Not if they are a child, of course, but if they are a man?
Is it wrong or degrading to treat a man as though he is a child, and pick up after him like that without ever mentioning it?
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I understand the protocol completely when I see a 3, 4 or 5 year old toss their trash on the ground or floor. In that case I smile brightly and say "Uh oh, sweetheart, we don't throw our trash on the ground. Here, come on and let's pick it up and put it in the trash can where it belongs" while helping them gather it up and walking with them over to the trash. When they throw it in I would say "There! That's right! That's the way we do it! Thank you! That's so much nicer!" and smile at them and maybe give them a big hug, if they were family.
What I can't figure out is how to translate that protocol to someone who is 28. Does anyone have any ideas?
Married people, have any of your spouses ever demonstrated that sort of heedlessness? How did you address it? I really want to know what is the right thing to do.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Some of it is tolerance level for mess. It's not so much that your roommates are looking for someone else to clean up their mess -- it's more like you said about tunnel vision. They just choose not to see it there.
I had roommates in college who were total slobs. Now mind you, I've NEVER been Suzy Homemaker, and my house is usually on the messy side. But when I'm living in a group situation, I clean up my public areas and confine my mess to my private room. Anyway, there was no such consideration w/ these roomies. I was actually living in an apartment w/ a total of 6 women, an experience I would never want to repeat. And only two of them were really, really messy and inconsiderate. The only time they ever washed anything was if every single other plate, knife, and pot were dirty and they needed to eat or cook. And, you guessed it, they only washed what they needed to use right then. And I remember distinctly watching one of them take a dirty knife (since there were no clean ones), scrape it "clean" on the edge of the table, and proceed to use it to spread her peanut butter on her bread.
I wish you a better resolution than we had. It became an us vs. them enviroment, and me being the "let's be nice, everyone" type, I just couldn't stand it there. Got my best grades ever that year, because I spent all possible time in the library in order to avoid going back to that place! It was probably also a factor in me staying together w/ a boyfriend I should have broken up w/ sooner.
The most unforgettable incident, though, occurred when one of the tidy girls came home to a thoroughly disgusting, stinking, dirty kitchen after a bad day at school & work. She, umm, didn't have the best conflict resolution/ anger management skills. She started taking dirty plates and glasses out of the kitchen sink and off the counter where they were piled. She then threw them one by one onto the floor until the smashed. However, a lot of them just bounced. So, she pulled out a chair and stood on it for greater height and impact.
I don't remember how many glasses and/or dishes she broke. I just remember that we all said "I'm not cleaning up Rosie's temper tantrum." So that smashed glass stayed on the floor in the kitchen for three days, I think. I was the wimp who finally swept it up.
But I still laugh about it.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
I am not the type to keep a perfect house by any means. I just find myself, the twenty-fifth or fiftieth time I'm scrubbing up some old stuck food of his off the stove or tiles, thinking "why am I doing this and not him?"
I can't stand to prepare any food on dirty surfaces, either, so I don't see a way to totally avoid it. I usually try to leave the trash for a week or two to give him a chance to pick it up himself but he usually doesn't.
He does do some helpful stuff, and he's not a bad roommate by any means, he just seems oblivious about certain things. I wish I knew the right thing to do. He means well, I'm sure.
posted
So, not that I would dream of criticising, but have you tried, you know, telling him he's a dirty slob? Or whatever diplomatic version you prefer.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
If you have powers Tante, then we all need to be worried (unless you don't know how to use them) Posts: 1941 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
This is why I live alone. Because no one could stand to live with me. Look at this place. i hate cleaning. There is no way I'd want to subject some other person to this. This is why if I get married me and my partner should NOT LIVE TOGETHER. My poor partner would only want to kill me... It would be better for the both of us to live apart and take turns visiting each other.
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Ah, I decided to just not worry about it. It's not important enough to be annoyed about. He's a good guy and he tries. There are probably things I do that drive him crazy too.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:What I can't figure out is how to translate that protocol to someone who is 28.
You ask, then talk about standards and expectations- then the big one, negotiate, as in, give up something- and I imagine it helps if you don't mention elves.
*looks fondly at his orderly studio apartment*
quote:"Uh oh, sweetheart, we don't throw our trash on the ground. Here, come on and let's pick it up and put it in the trash can where it belongs"
In general, I think the problem with this approach is that you don't get to decide what we do here. My gut tells me that you don't even get to decide what belongs where.
If you don't respect the other person as a free and equal person, even if they are a free and equal slob, you still need to respect them as a person with all of the agency you have. Again, I think it would help if you explain why you need things just so. And why this is important enough to bring up because it sounds as if your roommate could care less about the same mess you suffer.
posted
Is not throwing garbage around on the ground for other people to pick up really being prissy or needing things just so? I really thought that was a minimum standard for decent human behavior. I would be so ashamed to do that! I don't think I could do it.
I see what you mean, though, that someone else's standard obviously isn't the same as mine. But, I mean, this isn't a landfill. You know? We really don't throw garbage down for other people to pick up, or worse, leave it lying around and kick through it as we walk past again and again. That's what really trashy people do, isn't it? And we aren't trashy people, are we?
Is that really some narrow unimportant and unreasonable standard of mine? I mean, I look around the neighborhood and I don't see garbage and car parts in everyone else's yard. It seems to be a standard that's fairly widespread, I'm thinking, and not just me. It is probably in the law as well, or at the very least it's in the homeowner's covenant, whatever you call that thing.
I was thinking the whole agency thing involved how messy or neat he keeps his own room and bathroom. I don't worry about that, and whatever he likes is fine with me. But it seems like public areas which are common to both of us require some minimum standard to be kept.
I suppose I am concerned mostly about health and safety hazards, and also about not presenting the neighbors with an unsightly view. But I also don't think it's right for me to become the unpaid, unthanked, and unnoticed personal handservant to someone who is an adult and perfectly intelligent and able-bodied. I mean, who does he think he is, a cat? Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
It seems that your friend has grasped the mathematics of the Prisoner's Dilemma, and you haven't. The best retaliatory tactic against a consistent defector is to begin defecting yourself; in other words, stop picking up after him. See if he notices the difference. If not, he will have won that war; move out.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: Is that really some narrow unimportant and unreasonable standard of mine? I mean, I look around the neighborhood and I don't see garbage and car parts in everyone else's yard.
Then you should be shacking up with everyone else, obviously this guy doesn't care. KM, *chuckles* it sounds as if they just have different approaches to domestic hygiene. If she stops cleaning, she'll live in squalor, and he'll just go back to how he lived before he met her.
Is it really physical health and safety hazards because that would be a hard sell to make with a straight face.
Tatiana, if I were you, and if the following were true, I'd take the line that:
"Coming home to a mess is simply demoralizing. My life is fragile enough such that I have a hard time functioning in a messy environment, so if you care about me, and you want to make our relationship work, I'm going to have to ask you to keep the common spaces clean, and what I mean by clean is, blah, blah, blah. Please don't back slide, because I don't know if I have the energy to have this conversation every time (enter instance). Now I understand that you don't care if (enter instance), but this is public space, we should have talked about it before, but we are talking about it now. So what do you think."
Then you actually have to listen to what he says and be willing to give up a little bit.
Posts: 5600 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote: I am not the type to keep a perfect house by any means. I just find myself, the twenty-fifth or fiftieth time I'm scrubbing up some old stuck food of his off the stove or tiles, thinking "why am I doing this and not him?"
Apparently they do.
Speaking as a slob, I think it's very hard to bridge the (how shall we say?) neat person-slob divide such that one person moving out isn't ultimately necessary.
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Irami, thanks. What you say makes a lot of sense. I think I'm probably missing the real issue, as is usual with me and human interactions, which I suck at. I think I'm just going to learn to tolerate what I can, and clean up without worrying about it or thinking about it, what I can't tolerate. I'll just pretend he's a large, rather bald cat. He's not a total slob by any means, and he does try. I probably drive him nuts in many ways, too, that are invisible to me. If it starts to bother me more, I will just call a dorm meeting and discuss it with him in terms very similar to that, except for the relationship part.
Noemon, just one roommate, at the moment, and he is a roommate only. Doesn't seem to want to be a friend, though he occasionally makes friendly gestures. We rarely even see each other. He's a nice LDS guy who needed a place to stay. The bishop knew I was looking for boarders to help share expenses, so he gave him my number. I have a four bedroom house all to myself and my 3 cats, and I really do enjoy having someone else living here. Also the money he pays is a significant benefit to me. He seems a likeable enough fellow from what I know of him. Because we never see each other, it seems the only interaction we ever have is when I ask him if he will please do something. I don't like being the mom and I don't like being the heavy.
Still, each time I clean up after him now, after the first 20 or 30 times, I can't help but wonder why it's me doing this job instead of him. You know? And I start thinking uncharitable things about his personal habits, upbringing, and ancestry. Which is not right, either.
But he may be going through a hard time in his life right now, and doesn't have any leftover attention or energy to notice things. Maybe I can just think of him as another cat, <laughs> whom of course I serve unquestioningly and clean up after 70 times 7 times without a second thought.
Maybe I should take the opposite tack and go out of my way to do something really nice. I made chocolate muffins last week with that idea in mind, but he said no thanks when I offered him some. Oh well. Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Storm Saxon, I really hope there's room for some middle ground here, because I'm not a particularly neat person. My mother would choke if she heard someone call me one. I happened to go into his bathroom while he was away and it's cleaner than mine.
I guess we just need some some basis for dialogue between us other than me saying "please do this and please don't do that" Maybe I should try to become his friend. If we were friends, then it might be easier to talk about anything that's on our minds, maybe?
Synesthesia, I'm thinking maybe it's me who can't live with anyone, maybe because I lived by myself for too long. I got along fine with most of my roommates in college, though. Maybe I should make more effort to be his friend.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
It's hard living with another person. Unless it's marriage or something I seriously never want to live with another person again. Oh, the lecturing I'd endure such as, shouldn't you take out the garbage and why is there hay all over the floor? The RABBIT is neater than you are. And is there any reason to have your paystubs and bank statements ALL OVER THE FLOOR? Not to mention all of these Dir en grey pictures, why are they on the floor instead of on the wall? So for the good of another person I live alone... Perhaps what you need is a some sort of definition of unreasonable messiness, which is what I need. Like, should I really keep all of these boxes? Their main purpose is to keep this rabbit out of this area where there are wires and dangerous things to rabbits. Or just how clean does the kitchen need to be? I know I need to stop leaving dishes in the sink, but I have been working for about 10 hours a day and whwen I get home I just don't feel like doing anything. And shouldn't my room be as messy as I want it to be?I think I need to keep the living room clean. What if I had a babe come over or something? Which means vacuuming and there's this territory in front of the television and computer teeming with nerdy junk such as spools of burnable cds, my Japanese dictionary, various books, this nirvana guitar book and DEORDORANT! Who the hell keeps that in front of the computer? Not to mention DVDs, snacks ect... It's insane Something has to be done! *Watches Desparate Housewives, Kung Fu movies and Plays guitar and the Sims 2 instead of cleaning* But, perhaps if you are friends you can say, Do what you want in your room, but please do not leave offal laying all over the living room!
Posts: 9942 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote: Storm Saxon, I really hope there's room for some middle ground here, because I'm not a particularly neat person. My mother would choke if she heard someone call me one. [Smile] I happened to go into his bathroom while he was away and it's cleaner than mine.
posted
Just talk to him. You don't have to wait until you feel that you are closer friends. Just let him know that it bothers you when he leaves a mess, and ask if he can clean up some.
It is much better to get it out there, than let the annoying situation simmer. He probably knows you are annoyed at something, but can't figure out what. You are better of to just tell him, maybe he will actually get better.
Posts: 1901 | Registered: May 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Wow. Does this thread bring back the old days.
I didn't have a raging temper tantrum about all the nasty dishes by breaking them . . . I packed them all off into the offending housemates' room, and left them smack dab in the middle of his bed.
Unfortunately, he found them there after a night of binge drinking, and that just added to the mess.
*bleah*
I did finally resort (most obnoxiously) to leaving step-by-step instructions and diagrams for how to clean bathrooms, wash dishes, and sundry other chores.
posted
I wish I could give you some tips but my messy roommate situation turned out pretty bad. I tried talking to her, but then she would leave me nasty notes or be even more messy. My living conditions were fairly unsanitary, and trying to wait her out on cleaning up her own messes didn't work. I was very sick my sophomore year and I think my living conditions contributed to it.
We went on a cleaning schedule for trash and dishes (alternated every other time) which worked better than anything, but she still wasn't great at doing that. I felt like a 3 year old getting stars for doing a chore, but it is the only suggestion I can offer because it still worked even when we stopped talking to each other from February through May.
The roommate thing ended with her basically stealing $450 from me in not paying rent, bouncing checks and refusing to pay for bills. I wanted to go to court, but my parents thought it would be better to forget her and her scum family. They felt that they were the kind of people who would enjoy continuing to make my life a living hell...unfortunately, I couldn't disagree with that logic.
Posts: 306 | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I wanted to post the resolution. I decided to write detailed and explanatory emails, since that was the one form of communication I could count on getting through. I explained what I needed him to do, and why. They were full of politeness and friendliness, and he did make some token efforts that didn't result in much change. He didn't reply to my emails. I thanked him for his efforts by email (he was never home when I was awake except if he was talking on his phone as he arrived. He seemed to be deliberately avoiding any face-to-face conversation, I guess, or maybe he was just busy.)
One day I scrubbed for about 4 hours, and then I said through his bedroom door (in a friendly voice) that I just got the kitchen really clean so would he please try to keep it that way. He said yes, then that evening he cooked and made a huge mess and left it all. There was this thick white goo all over the stove from where he cooked rice. I guess it spilled and then congealed to a gel about 1/4" thick. I got pretty disgusted at that.
You have to understand that at work, I go on jobsites, and I'm used to being the engineer, and I tell the workmen what to do, and they do it. I don't have to nag or cajole, and it's really unpleasant to be put in the that position. I'm very unused to people blowing me off. Basically he's had women cleaning up after him all his life, and he's determined not to change that situation, is how I see it. He's in his late 20s so he's fully grown, though he acts like a teenager in this regard.
So here's what I did. I dispensed with all the politenesses and gentle words and started just emailing him in short imperative sentences what I needed to have happen. I said, "I rented you one room and your stuff is all over the whole downstairs. Fix that." "Please clean up the trash around your truck in the back yard." Stuff like that. Then about a week after I started that new method, he told me he was moving in with a friend. Situation resolved! =) When he left he hugged me and thanked me for the courtesy. I think he might have been being sarcastic about that, but I took it at face value and told him he was welcome.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I haven't heard from his friend, though he moved back to his hometown and married his sweetheart since then. I hope his wife has better luck teaching him than I did. =) I think LDS guys are sometimes backwards comparatively, since they often had stay at home moms who are steeped in the gender-distinctions of LDS culture. Though I have to say that most of the families in my ward have their kids raised to be very helpful and willing to work around the home.
For a while I did his laundry in exchange for him mowing the lawn every two weeks. That seemed to work out pretty well, maybe because it fit his preconceived ideas of gender roles? But basically, soon after I instituted the system where he had to actually do his share, he found another place to stay. So that worked for me too.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
Don't give a dinner party where you get every pot, pan, dish and piece of silverware in the apartment dirty then expect your roommate (who you not only didn't invite to the party but specifically asked to stay out of the apartment while the party was in progress) to do all the cleaning up because it happens to be "their week" to do the dishes.
That happened to me once. Said roommates took exception to my refusal to play maid, emptied trash cans in the middle of my bedroom floor and then went to the dorm supervisor (it was in an apartment, but was campus housing) and told her that I "wasn't trying to get along."
There is something to be said for making a chore chart and sticking to it in general, but as far as I can see, everyone needs to clean up their extraordinary messes (like messes from entertaining) on their own, no matter whose turn it is to do the ordinary cleaning.
Posts: 2454 | Registered: Jan 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I missed this thread the first time around. I think it's so sad that this kind of thing happens all the time, though--I don't think there's anything worse than having an uncomfortable home life.
Though, I would like to speak from the other side of the messy/clean fence. I had a roommate who could never communicate anything with me. He was cleaner than I was, but I was "neater" than he was. He would leave lots of stuff everywhere, whereas I always had everything in order. He was really big on the antiseptic issue--always using soap and windex on everything.
Anyway, I always tried to keep open communication with him about how things were going in the upkeep of the apartment, and I assumed everything was fine for a while. I found out that he was constantly complaining to his friends about what a slob I was (which isn't true!). The issue was that our dishwasher had been broken, so the dishes had to sit on the counter/sink area to be cleaned. I've always been in the habit of waiting till most of the dishes are used, then doing all of them at once in one sitting. This behavior, to him, was slobbish. There were a bunch of other things, but I think the real PROBLEM was his inability to communicate what he wanted with me. I'm not psychic, and people see different things that are important to them.
So anyway, I think in relation to Tatiana's original story--I think that open, honest communication would have solved it easier than the e-mails. I've always found that leaving notes/e=mails shows an extreme disrespect for the other person. Also--when that open communication occurs, you have to be extremely careful not to come off as condescending, overbearing, or insulting.
Anyway--I'm not ever gonna let that kind of tension develop between me and my roommates again. I make sure that I do everything in my power to be a good roommate, and that as soon as I see something I don't like, I tell them in the most friendly, honest way possible.
Posts: 1314 | Registered: Jan 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Oh, Launchywiggin, I totally agree about the communication. The reason I used emails is because it was the only way he left open for me to talk to him. I guess you didn't read that part. He was gone the whole time I was awake on most days, and when he was home he would be in the middle of a conversation on his cell phone. There was no time that he was free to actually talk. That's why I had to resort to email. I tried to be very friendly and open, but he never responded. It was as though cleaning and picking up trash were embarrassing things that he preferred not to speak about. I was supposed to just clean them up and not mention them to him, I think.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Seriously - my roommates write little passive aggressive notes when dishes are not done within an hour. It is apparently too important to leave alone but not important enough to talk to me myself.
I am not impressed. First, the humongous list of annoying behaviors these socially-challenged roommates do could fill a bucket, but part of getting along is putting up with that kind of thing. Sure, my roommate complains constantly about things she could change and plays her guitar at midnight while I'm trying to sleep, but it could be worse. They shrink my clothes and ruin my furniture, but that's just part of living with people.
The notes get me the most. I told her that if something is that important, talk to me in person. She said she didn't have to and if I didn't do exactly what she wanted, she'd keep writing them.
At that point, I was angry I left (this was last night), but what I wanted to say was that 1) this only works if there is mutual respect. Passive-aggressive littles does NOT equal respect. Things don't happen because she says so - they happen because I agree to try. No respect, and I'll stop trying altogether. And 2) One more little note and I'll use it to decoupage something important to her. Also, considering she isn't respecting me, she'll have to stop using my stuff. All of it. She'd be left with two spoons, three bowls, and a Crockpot.
Posts: 1753 | Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I once wrote a note to a roommate. I had been sick for a week and stayed with a friend on campus. I came back home and the stench of the trash was overwhelming and overflowing. I was still feeling miserable and just wanted to collapse into bed. Since none of my roomies were there, I wrote a note and promptly fell asleep. When I woke up, the trash was out and my roomies were waiting for me. If the trash upset me so much, I should have taken it out. How dare I expect them to do something I myself was unwilling to do. I replied, well, I am sick and miserable and haven't thrown anything in the trash in a week since I haven't been here. Thanks for noticing my absence.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Per Hatrack Chat yesterday, I'd like to add:
Under no circumstances are you to cook Totino's Pizzas on the electric stove top without a skillet. In fact, under no circumstances should you put ANYTHING on the strove top that is in fact not a skillet, pot, pan, etc.
Posts: 1368 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
I can't stand passive-aggressive notes. Really, I can't. [Not like yours, scholar! I refer to something much different.]
---
[Edited to add: And I certainly wasn't referring to Tatiana. It sounds like he made written communication very clearly the only way she could reach him -- not that she was avoiding him by writing messages, but that he was avoiding her and forcing her to communicate this way alone. Totally different than the avoidance-by-passsive-aggressive-notes strategy.]
It takes a lot more (guts/character/energy/respect/all of the above) to state your case in person and manage the reaction that arises like an adult in a partnership (which living together is, to some extent, regardless of any other relationship that may or may not be there). However, that is the level of "more" that we owe to one another.
[Javert Hugo], have you ever seen the website with passive-aggressive notes sent in by readers? Hilarious and painful.
I stopped speaking to my former best friend over a passive aggressive note. There was an issue that he had with me while I was staying at his place, and I had no idea. He never talked to me about it, and acted like everything was fine. Then one day I woke up to find a VERY aggressive note. I got my stuff, left his place, and have not spoken to him since. I have no patience for that sort of behavior.
My roommate in San Diego also was great for waking up to find notes slipped under my door in the middle of the night. Wasn't long after that started that I moved out (the note leaving was only one of MANY reasons why that roommate relationship was poisonous).
I am not a scary guy. If you have an issue with me, grow some balls and actually have the confrontation!
In perhaps the ultimate in passive/aggressive note leaving, my older brother divorced his ex-wife with a note left on the dining room table.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I considered a passive aggressive note once. I thought about giving my roomie a gag clearly from an adult store, perhaps with a note instructing her to use it in her next "encounter." My other roomie once determined how far away you could hear her when she was with her "friend"- across the courtyard, past the next row of apts, into the laundry room. Once the dryer was turned on, the sound was muffled though.
Posts: 1001 | Registered: Mar 2006
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
I mean, I look around the neighborhood and I don't see garbage and car parts in everyone else's yard. It seems to be a standard that's fairly widespread, I'm thinking, and not just me. It is probably in the law as well, or at the very least it's in the homeowner's covenant, whatever you call that thing.![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Kiss]](graemlins/kiss.gif)
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
