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My roomate popped back into town after a blessed month long stint in the Bay Area. He is going back tommorrow, and we will part ways when we move out at the end of august, but for now, I just really can't stand his presence.
You know what it is? He is sitting in the living room, on the phone with someone, drolling on about some conversation he had with someone at a store somewhere about NOTHING!!! He is one of those people who has a story, and then repeats all the details of the story over and over until you can distract him into stopping or forgetting what he is talking about. He is one of those people who will start a story and then appear to be bored by himself, but nonetheless continue with his ultra-boring saga of nothingness. AARRRGGG!!!!
He also sits in front of my TV and eats HUGE amounts of food; so much that it makes me ill to see it. I am talking about things like an entire apple pie, or an entire XL pizza, or an entire bag of pasta with nothing but some pesto sauce and alot of butter on it.
When we first moved in, I realized he was "one of those" types when I offered him some food I was cooking, and he accepted it uneasily. I realized later that this was because he would NEVER under any circumstances share his food with me. I would make a frozen pizza, and offer him the second half, but if I was about to make my dinner, and he had the same half a pizza sitting there, he would wrap that baby up and eat it himself later. He NEVER ONE TIME offered me anything, and I soon stopped thinking of making him a burger, or a serving of stir fry, or sharing anything with him at all.
Then there is the internet. Whenever he is here with his computer hooked up, he is participating in bit torrents, downloading gigabytes of Anime and probably alot of porn as well. He has three hard drives 200GB each, full of Anime. That was all had at the expense of our shared bandwidth BTW. I cannot wait to get out of here! I have a new place lined up, a room in a fellow music major's house for the next year, and I am exstatic at this point.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote:That was all had at the expense of our shared bandwidth BTW.
You should remind him that the Internet is made of tubes.
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Seriously, my freshman year of college, I got stuck with a 36-year-old freshman who'd come to college after nearly two decades in the Marines. He almost never spoke, smoked like a chimney, and hated all pop culture with the exception of -- inexplicably -- Heinlein and "The Dukes of Hazzard." When he did speak, usually when I brought somebody in briefly to visit before popping out, it would be a non-sequitur like "five years ago my arm was pulled out of its socket by recoil. I didn't cry, because you don't cry. But it hurt like a mother, and I swore then and there that I'd never do it again." In response to the comment "Hey, Frank, you want to chip in for some pizza?"
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Gah. My first one wouldn't let us have food in our room. We could only have celery and Brita filtered water. And we couldn't have a television. And if I went out and wasn't coming back, I had to call and let her know. I moved out after two weeks. She later became totally anorexic, like, y'know where you can see the ribs on the chest? Like that. And she spread a bunch of rumors about me.
My second was a ho. We lived on the only co-ed floor (guys in one wing, girls in the other), and she hooked up with every single guy on the floor. While I was in the room. And then she complained about how she didn't understand why it was getting so awkward for her.
When I finally moved off-campus, I lived with a girl who was generally pretty cool, except that she was a sociopath. A diagnosed sociopath, or whatever they're calling them nowadays. She was actually cool because she always had psycho stories, like about the time she slept with an Atlanta Brave. Except she made up stories about me, too.
The 'ho' part and the 'While I was in the room.' part are defintely key players in my nightmarish roomates make-up...
Posts: 1355 | Registered: Jul 2006
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If anyone in a shared-room situation has sex without inviting the roommate to join in, I fully believe you should pop popcorn and then provide color commentary. I would give them a warning once that that was not appropriate behavior. If you're uncomfortable talking to yourself, pick up the phone and pretend to be describing what's happening to your mother. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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In second year, my roommate's sociopathic boyfriend fed my siamese fighting fish Mike's Hard Lemonade while I was out one night. It died-- the fish I mean, unfortunately. I definitely disliked him with the intensity of a thousand burning suns. I have some ex-live-in partners that I dislike that much also. Now I live on my own, which I fully recommend if you can afford it.
Posts: 58 | Registered: Jul 2006
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The one roommate I've had was pretty good. Well, actually, pretty nondescript. He was a tall Chinese guy. He was rarely if ever in the room, except to sleep--like me. We never really chatted much, though we played Civ3 head-to-head several times.
Oh, and he had good food, which he shared. In return, I offered all my Ramen.
Posts: 1735 | Registered: Oct 2004
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Heck, I've had 7 roommates, and every single one of them was a decent person. It must be luck.
Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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My first roommate in uni was okay, I suppose. She had a tendency to play late-night Mario Kart (I wasn't as bad a night owl as I am now) with noises, and people would just pop into our room at 2am while I was trying to sleep for my 9am exam. She rarely showered, and so our room started to smell like old feet. I had an airsponge and the window was open at least a bit even in the dead of winter.
Honestly, when I think about the roommates I could have gotten, she wasn't too bad. Just not ideal.
Then I had my own room for a term. It was nice, but I was a bit lonely. I took a chance on a friend I was growing closer to over the term, and she was the best roommate I could ever have asked for, and the best friend. I lucked out. I'd still live with her if I could, but half a continent is between us for now.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote:Originally posted by ElJay: If anyone in a shared-room situation has sex without inviting the roommate to join in, I fully believe you should pop popcorn and then provide color commentary. I would give them a warning once that that was not appropriate behavior. If you're uncomfortable talking to yourself, pick up the phone and pretend to be describing what's happening to your mother.
Whatever happened to inviting over two friends, paying far too much attention to the act while taking notes, and then holding up score-cards after it's over. Granted, being at a Mormon college I've never run in to this situation, but that's probably what I'd do.
My room-mates have all been generally boring. I've had a few really good ones (including the tightest group of roomies I've ever had in my life, who are all married now) and some really really not good ones. Like the one I have now, who insists that everyone rinse their dishes off and pile them on the counter right next to the sink. This wouldn't bother me, normally, except for the fact that we have a dishwasher and I've never seen him load it.
The other nightmare was when I had a roomie whom I had served with on my mission (at a distance, he was one of the leaders and I was not ). He felt it was necessary to get the landlord to assign him a room in my apartment without asking me. I didn't like this guy on my mission, and it took great feats of strength to not turn him into a wall decoration when I found out that he'd told the landlord I was okay with him moving in, when in fact I would have laughed my head off and told him to go hitch a ride on the river Styx if he'd asked my opinion on the subject.
Posts: 3003 | Registered: Oct 2004
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MY freshman year roomate was beginning his slide into alchoholism. He was one of 3 4 roomies I had in my suite-style dorm. He would get savagely drunk at 3am and once kicked down my door while I was out. He was evicted for that one.
This guy was also kind of obsessive about his room- bed neatly tucked, books lined up in a row and all. He was, I suspect, the victim of some rather severe emotional abuse by his parents, but I am no phycologist. He never referred to them or contacted them in my presence, never went home, and never had a relationship, except with alchohol.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Heh. Google wasn't quite as popular when I was in college. For my second-year roommate, I actually looked up his high school's webpage. Posts: 1813 | Registered: Apr 2001
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Hmm, my least favorite roommate activities include watching every single sports game ever aired on tv and swearing and yelling and all sorts of angry sounding loud mouthnoises throughout the whole game, even though it was just me and her there and I was never paying attention... and even when its obvious I'm trying to sleep or study. Remember this is in a tinyyyy room. And the one who would sleep (in the traditional, zzzz, kind of way) with a male friend a lot (which I don't mind at all) but then leaving for class in the morning and leaving him there. I take showers at night so I'm left dragging my clothes to the bathroom to change, and packing for class with a strange, half-awake man right there.
Posts: 3636 | Registered: Oct 2001
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quote: Then there is the internet. Whenever he is here with his computer hooked up, he is participating in bit torrents, downloading gigabytes of Anime
Well, really, do you expect someone who watches a lot of anime to have good judgement?
Posts: 13123 | Registered: Feb 2002
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quote: Then there is the internet. Whenever he is here with his computer hooked up, he is participating in bit torrents, downloading gigabytes of Anime
Well, really, do you expect someone who watches a lot of anime to have good judgement?
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OK OK Lets flip this around and say things we did that we KNOW our other roommates didnt like
I ate out 3 meals a day and filled up the garbage faster than anybody else and though I took it out a few times, I probably should have done it everytime.
I have been known to snore on occasion, and I know thats just one of those inavoidable obnoxious problems. I had one roommate that loved to play Warcraft 3 and whenever he asked me to play with him I usually declined and said it was because I wasn't in the mood but really it was because I hated losing and I am a terrible sport sometimes
I had damn obnoxious roommates too though. I had 2 that were in the basement apartment while I was on the 2nd lvl of the apt. They ran the freakin heater because they complained that they were too hot while me and my roommate roasted all the time. My roommate and I had a window completely open during every season. If it was 5 degrees F we had our window open and still we were roasting. We asked the other 2 roommates if we could switch with them but of course they rejected that plan for baseless reasons.
One of my roommates insisted I help with the dishes even though I NEVER used any of the dishes. When we had cleaning checks the bathroom was always the same 2 roommates who always failed their assignments and always made it impossible for us to do our assignments. If I drew bathroom duty you can beat one of them would have the runs the moment after I was done or the moment before the cleaning atendant would show up.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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My first roommate was fantastic. His name was Shane, and honestly, I think I was the bad roommate in our relationship -- I always had my girlfriend over, I usually waited until the end of the week to wash the silverware (his, and though he liked an empty sink, I was usually tired), and the worst crime of all -- I ate his food without asking permission. I always replaced it, often doubly over, but I don't think I'm ever going to get over the guilt. Otherwise, we got along great. I'd come home after fourteen hour days and collapse, and we'd watch WWF or Ultimate Fighting or I'd just watch as he'd play some video game, and we'd talk late into the night. He was a really great guy.
My college roommate was terrible, though. He drank like a faucet and took every drug I've ever heard of (...in our living room, the nights before chemistry midterms, with several dozen cheering people, until five AM), told terrible lies about every friend he has that isn't immediately in the room, and at the end of the year, stole my Family Guy DVDs. He seems like a really charming guy at first impression, but my god, toward the end, we could barely tolerate sleeping in the same room at night.
Next year looks fantastic, though. My roommate's one of my best friends, and our suitemates are party animals -- but usually in other people's dorms. It'll be a nice balance. Heh, we're planning to shoot a (corny) music video, I gotta start writing a song for it...
Posts: 3293 | Registered: Jul 2002
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I've only had one roomate and we were both very mild and undemanding. Woo hoo!
However, I have lived with some pretty annoying housemates/next-door housemates. I once removed a large amount of tuna fish placed/hidden deliberately under the lights in the bathroom, supposedly intended to go rotten and smell the place out before anyone noticed. I strongly dislike pranks when I have to clean them up. Luckily I caught the fish only a few minutes or hours after it had been placed there.
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My worst roommate convinced one of his many girlfriends to buy him a german shepherd puppy. Whenever he was gone to class and every night, when he left to sleep over at one of his other girlfriends' houses, he put the puppy in a pet carrier in the kitchen, where it would scream and cry until I let it out, at which time it would run around frantically with huge licky puppy energy while I was trying to sleep.
It wasn't housebroken at 5 months, when I moved out.
He was also a pathological liar, who lied about everything even when there was no need to and who stole from everyone around him. His parents, grandparents, friends, and, oh yeah, me.
He slept with several of his parents' (married) friends in the four months I lived there.
We worked together, doing sales (in home stuff), and during several field observations with him I saw him browbeat housewives into buying stuff.
I'm pretty sure he's a sociopath; he had all the symptoms.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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Most of my roommates were good ones - sure, they had their own little annoying quirks, like one wouldn't clean the sink after shaving, or another would walk around taking big bites out of random vegetables and exclaim loudly "Y'know, the onion never really caught on as a hand fruit".
Then there was the the crazy one.
We initially figured he'd be alright since I knew him in high school, and I remembered him being one of the quiet ones. When he moved in, we found out he had two volume settings - whisper and LOUD!
There was not allowed to be a speck of dust/grime on anything, or he would start loudly complaining about how the place was a sty while scrubbing things.
One time I left some dirty pots on the counter while I ate - he appeared in the kitchen, made a loud show of stacking everything haphazardly in the corner so he could clean & use the counter to prepare his food. He liked to stomp while cleaning as well, which annoyed our downstairs roommate (since the stomping was hard enough to knock bits of the ceiling onto him). He came upstairs to confront him, and crazy roommate drove him out of the kitchen while screaming and waving a knife.
After that, we told him he had to find a new place. We later ran into his sister, who agreed with our assessment that he needs psychological help - we figured that he has some severe obsessive-compulsive disorder about cleanliness.
...felt good to get that out.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Jun 2006
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Chris, do I know any of these people? They sound fun, especially the vegetable guy. For me, that is, who never had to live with them.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I'm pretty sure you met the random-vegetable-as-a-hand-fruit guy; we were roommates since second year He was a fun guy - though this was the guy who turned down jobs because they were too far from home, then after grad, moved overseas...
You've of course met "LOUD NOISES~!" who can make anything he says sound intense, you'll meet the Urban Yak at the wedding (think tall Dilbert)...don't think you know hairy guy (he became a comfy rat though).
There was this one girl I lived with for a few months - into Latin, books, tea; a good cook, a swimmer, likes to quote '10th Kingdom' - I enjoyed snuggling with her and another of her girl roommates while watching CSI... you probably know her.
I don't think you know any of my other former roommates though.
Posts: 22 | Registered: Jun 2006
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I know a Russian tin-basher who eats onions like apples. Apparently he missed the memo on this non-hand-fruit business.
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2004
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I believe I've met your female room mates... They're kind of crazy, neh? But really great for snuggling with.
Posts: 1158 | Registered: Feb 2004
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First roommate was a raver. Whole glow stick sha-bang. made his own beats and played them loud at 8:15 in the morning. One time he stepped out of the shower with my towel wrapped around his waist. He didnt think it was a big deal.
Oh yeah, and he also was dealing acid out of our window into the parking lot. When he told me he was moving out at the semester he acted as if I would be hurt. I could hardly keep from yelling in excitement.
Posts: 375 | Registered: Mar 2005
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When I got to my room in first year, and met my first ever roomate, I was initially very worried. He seemed at first like a big jock, who was all into partying and being stupid (now don't get me wrong, partying and being stupid are enjoyable preactices, but I like to throw in some nerdiness in there too), but after a few days, I realized that I had completely misjudged him. WE got along amazingly. We each had our own group of friends in res, but we were always comfortable hanging out with each other and each other's friends, we both had a very healthy balance of partying and studying, and were always considerate when the other person needed quiet time. We both liked simialr enough music (though I hated his G&R, and he hated my indie music). We both got into each other's interests, and I even got him to start watching stargate with me everytime a new episode came out (though being more of an alpha male type, he prefered Atlantis, the one with more action). We both had grilfriends for most of the year (though not always the same ones...) but were very considerate to each other, and always went to their rooms rather than ours. We would stay up until 4 sometimes watching scrubs episodes and talking about random stuff, and always talked about our problems and life to each other. We didn't move in together in 2nd year, but we are still great friends, and I can honestly say that my frist year of univeristy was only as good as it was because of him. I'm sorry for all of your who have bad roomates, because a good one can make all the difference in your life!
Posts: 441 | Registered: Jun 2005
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Ugh, I have this one roommate now who wakes me up at 5:30 in the morning more often than not, just standing next to my bed. Leaves things like banana peels on the floor too. That's such a nasty thing to find by stepping on it.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Oh yeah, the nudist - I think I must have drove that out of my memory, cause I actually racked my brain trying to think of any other 'out-of-the-ordinary' roommates.
It wouldn't have been so bad if the nudism was all it was; he would shower (and sing) with the bathroom door open; same with using the bathroom for other purposes. He felt it necessary to "conserve water" by peeing in the sink...and refused to stop after we told him not to.
*re-drives this out of memory*
Posts: 22 | Registered: Jun 2006
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quote:he would shower (and sing) with the bathroom door open
I do this, too.
Of course, I live alone. But I've also done it about a dozen times getting ready to go out, with a few buddies in the living room drinking beer.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by TrapperKeeper: Oh yeah, and he also was dealing acid out of our window into the parking lot. When he told me he was moving out at the semester he acted as if I would be hurt. I could hardly keep from yelling in excitement.
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Oooh, I forgot one of the other roommates! The good one and myself had a third roommate much of the time. Two of them were great, couldn't ask for better, but the first was... gah.
She didn't flush. However, I suspect that she did flush occasionally - feminine things that aren't supposed to be flushed. I had to plunge the toilet more than I enjoyed. Never found any evidence, though.
She didn't pass on phone messages, and my sister thought I was shunning her because I never returned the calls she left.
She cooked this wretched frozen seafood medly that I swear smelled like week-dead squirrel or something.
But the most irritating thing, I think, was her habit of using my pots (something I normally don't mind), and wrecking them (something I do mind). The first time, she took it into her head that she could decrystallise a plastic bottle of honey by sticking it in boiling water. A plastic bottle. In my pot. I got home and there was a ring of melted plastic stuck to the bottom of the pot. No explanation, no apology, no attempt to clean it. I boiled the plastic back out but it left a permanent ring on the bottom. The second time, I have no idea what she was cooking, but it took me about 20 minutes to scrub the black, charred mess off the bottom. Again, no apology or attempt to clean it, just a query as to why the dishes weren't done yet (because I'm cleaning the mess you made of my pot, duh). She had her own pots, too. She just liked to use mine.
Gah.
Okay, I feel a bit better now.
Posts: 2849 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I once entered on my roomate using one of my pans to cook up a grilled cheese. Its a gas range, and he had it on HIGH, so the thing was sputtering melted butter, smoking, and synging his grilled cheese all at once.
This is the really spectacular part: he flipped the grilled cheese out of the skillet, took the pan to the sink, turned on the water, and doused the pan, which was hissing violently at this point, in COLD WATER!!!
I swear it took the teflon right off the pan. He swore later that it didn't do anything to the pan, but over the next few months, the pan rusted and he stopped using it. I bought new stuff and forbade him from using it.
Edit: this hardly beats the time he put my wooden salad bowl in the dishwasher, and whatever sealant was in it came off, and it cracked everywhere.
Then there was the time he let a rubber handled spatula fall to the bottom of the dishwasher and it burned the rubber, filling the appartment with acrid smoke. Pleasant.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I had a sane roommate who would leave trash on the counter next to the trash can!
Couldn't get that system, for the life of him.
He also couldn't get not using metal on a teflon pan. He also, also, couldn't figure out that it was easier to wash the dishes when you're done using them instead of letting them pile up until none are clean.
It got to the point where I bought myself a deep 10" skillet and a plastic spatula, which I kept in my room. I used it, then washed it immediately after and returned it to my room. It was just simpler than browbeating my roommate into cleaning up after himself.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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I had a roommate who would cook something in a pot, and then cover the leftovers in it with saran wrap and stick the pot in the fridge, instead of putting the leftovers into tupperware or something. Saves on dishes, right? Except that we had two pots, one of hers and one of mine, and I would come home to find both of them in the fridge with her leftovers in them and nothing for me to cook in.
Once the problem was pointed out to her, however, she did see and understand it and stop doing it. Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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*shudder* Now ya'll got me all worked up and skerred. Come fall semester I'm sharing an apartment with another guy. I sort of know him though, so I hope that he won't be ... a bad experience. He was my best friend when I was 6, then we sort of lost contact after that ... but he was a decent fellow back then!
Posts: 2827 | Registered: Jul 2005
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We had a dishwasher in my first apartment. Well, we'd had one at my parents' house, too, and it washed everything. So when I cooked I'd put my plates and my pots in the dishwasher.
One night I came home to find a dirty pot in my bed with a note from my roommate attached: "The dishwasher does not scrub pots and I AM NOT YOUR MOTHER!!!"
Ooh, I was embarrassed. Fortunately she was the kind that would get mad and blow up and then it was over ... she didn't hold grudges.
Posts: 1522 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Man, I don't know you YOU'D be embarrassed by that. I'd say that was pretty rude of her to do without talking to you about it at least once first.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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