Rambling post

Fear not, T. Even though RM is making an effort, you have to remember that in his heart, he still doesn't get it. This actually came up during our talk.

A.: We had that conversation almost immediately after you moved in: I'm generally not up for conversation after work.
RM: But I pulled back after that.
A.: Kind of. You backed off more easily, but the way it appeared to me, you still pushed the limits of what I would tolerate in terms of conversation, instead of respecting the fact that I didn't want conversation at all. I was still the one doing the work.

The funny thing is, MBTI workshops in the workplace are meant to teach people to work together in spite of different styles. You learn to recognize that someone has a different style, so, presumably, instead of clashing, you work around it. So I figured his early designation of me as an 'I' meant that he actually understood what that meant and how to deal with it. But it was more like a game: 'you're an I. Cool. I guessed right.'

By the way, this isn't going anywhere-- there's no juicy story that this is leading up to. I'm merely letting you know that there probably will be one in the future, because even though he's acknowledged hearing that we're roommates, not friends, he's still somewhat unwilling to accept it. When he came downstairs, in his whites-- he was going to a banquet, instead of walking out the door, went back into the living room, where I was sitting, to ask a question about directions, to which he didn't need an answer.

RM: Er, A.-- N. Glebe-- that's not the same Glebe that hits Rte 1?
A.: Not really, but they connect...
RM: So is that faster than taking GW Pkwy?
A.: I don't know. Did you check google maps?
RM: Yes...
A.: ??
RM: There were two possible ways.
A.: I couldn't tell you which one is better.

And it's not that I couldn't bring myself to yield a 'you look nice,' which is what he was clearly going for; it's that I didn't know how to say it. "Nice whites" just doesn't sound right. It's not that I'd never told Kevin that he looked snappy, but for some reason, it didn't feel right. So I didn't acknowledge the whites, and I could tell he was disappointed.

***
Much as I vent about my mother, there are things about my upbringing for which I'm grateful-- two types of grateful: directly grateful, i.e. grateful for the things mom deliberately did, such as put a roof over my head, value education, etc.; and indirectly grateful, for the things that mom didn't do on purpose, but from which I nonetheless benefited. One of the latter was to make the option of living with her, as an adult, no option at all. The people described in that Post article I posted a couple of days ago, as well as some people I hear about, must not mind living with their parents (and I don't mean people who have lost their jobs and have no other choice; I'm talking about the postpone-adulthood crowd).

Another thing that my mother did for me without trying was teach me to fight back when pushed into a corner. She achieved this by regularly pushing me into a corner, as a result of which I came to understand that appeasement would get me nowhere in the long run, but more importantly, that there was no reason I had to stay there, even though she pushed. It is very--tempting would be the wrong word-- natural to feel obligated to relate on someone else's terms, when that person establishes terms and just expects you to follow along. But you don't have to.

This is vaguely related to roommate, in the sense that just because he's hurt by the fact that we're not friends, doesn't mean I have to let him define the terms of the relationship. But really I thought of it because I finished "Comfort Me with Apples," and, more to the point, read the part where Ruth Reichl's mother insists on visiting for Thanksgiving--buys the ticket without asking first--and then proceeds to rearrange the furniture to her liking. When Ruth and her boyfriend protest, she said she was going to invite the people she met on the plane over for a gathering and couldn't possibly host them in the house in it's prior condition. (In case you were wondering, yes, she is Jewish). When Ruth stands firm, her mother announces that that's it, she's leaving, and Ruth, to her own surprise and to her mother's, says 'fine, leave.' She does insist that she's welcome to stay, and that leaving is her (the mother's decision), but that she won't pander.

I've been through similar situations many a time. Mom was shocked when, many years ago on a family vacation, she suggested we all go our separate ways and meet up at the end, and I said, "fine." She fully expected me to freak out and beg her to reconsider, as I had yet more years before. I'd had it.

We all have our rules of interpersonal interaction, and successfully manipulative people are very good at throwing down theirs as if they're standard. Often, they fool themselves, too, and they don't realize that they may have won the battle, gotten what they wanted, but that the person with whom they're interacting registered it as a defeat, perhaps one where the fight wasn't worth the effort. It wasn't free, though-- after a while, people who will compromise once, twice, or for years, will eventually have had enough. It's really much healthier for everyone involved to not play these games in the first place.