RM update

My cuberhood abuts a small conference room. In my two months in the cuberhood, I have, several times gotten up and politely asked meeting attendees in the conference room whether I could close the door. At least twice, one of the guys who sits next to me has thanked me, told me I'm awesome, etc. Today, one said, "I've been struggling with that for years and never know how to do anything about it without sounding like a jerk. And you didn't sound like a jerk." Sometimes I give it a second thought but today I didn't: they were being loud, I couldn't concentrate, and the meetingers were happy to oblige.

One reason I'm telling you this is so that you'll know that I don't have issues with politely asking people to change their behavior. It's not something I'm generally uncomfortable with. As I've told you, I've talked to roommate many times.

But, as I've also told you, I've given up. There's a certain point where it's easier to just give up. Use earplugs. Because there's no use.

I was thinking about this over the weekend-- about how he seems to disregard everything we've talked about and act surprised about the reality that we've discussed--and then a friend of mine relayed the same phenomenon about someone in her life: "He can be sensitive and seem to be a good listener in the moment, but he doesn't seem to catalog the conversation away and remember to follow through."

That's so my roommate: he nods, acknowledges what you've said... and then fails to imprint it into his understanding of reality.

And since there's no point in communicating with him about living-together issues, I've stopped.