Roundabout roommate update

Cliché, I know, but I can’t believe it’s September. July dragged, August flew by, and when September came, the weather changed practically on schedule. I realized that one reason the arrival of fall, which I love, has discombobulated my sense of time is that I don’t really remember last fall—it was a blur; not bad, but a blur, from the minute the bid on the house came through.

Last July—July 2008—actually was pretty painful. I spent much of it in the endodontist’s office, but getting the root canal wasn’t the problem—it was actually a relief. Paying for the root canal, not so much, and waiting, in excruciating pain, between appointments, was bad. I remember other things through the unifying thread of the dental work: getting a flat (bike) tire on the way home, after having left early because I was in pain (and then getting several more flats in the next couple of weeks); my laptop breaking, and my having to wonder whether I could charge the repair without exceeding my credit limit, because of having just charged the root canal. I also remember making a bid on another house, which, needless to say, fell through—and I’m glad it did. I can’t believe, knowing what I do now, that I thought it would be manageable to have that kind of mortgage at 6.5%. I’d be miserable.

By September, I’d given up on the housing search. My realtor would show me houses, and they were either beautiful but too much of a stretch, or not beautiful enough to justify any stretch at all. I said to myself that I’d take a break, build up my savings, enjoy the house I was living in then. I mean, I was getting antsy… the decrepitude of the house, which didn’t bother me for years, was starting to get to me, and even the porch had ceased to be an escape. The neighbors across the alley doused way too much propane on their grill, and the fumes regularly drifted our way. The neighbor across the lawn had trimmed the shrubs separating the two properties, taking away any semblance of privacy, and she would consistently glare at us as she went to and fro. Nonetheless, I was already in ‘shrug’ mode when Dayna contacted me about a house. Besides, she told me there was already an offer on it, so I didn’t take it seriously—but I didn’t think it would hurt to look at it. I almost cancelled on her, because we—my colleagues and I were out in Leesburg on a site visit—were running late. But we got back just in time, and I loved the house. It was that epiphany that other friends who had recently bought had told me about—they said I’d know when I loved it, and the only way I’d want to make that payment every month is if I loved it.

I remember that really clearly, but after that point, it became a blur. That’s not true—I remember riding home, across the mall, when Dayna called to say I’d gotten it. I vaguely remember filling out a f*load of paperwork, dealing with lenders, making spreadsheets. The rest is hazy, apart from a few things that were notable for having nothing do with the house. I remember, a week after the offer was accepted, Marcela’s talking me into going to Galapagos, after I’d written to say it just wasn’t going to happen. I remember going out to Old Rag with Margo and a friend of hers, and picking up freecycled moving boxes when we got back that evening. I remember categories of things: picking up freecycled goods—after I’d signed up to get rid of my stuff, not to get more. I remember work, in the sense that I went in, and apparently I made myself useful. But the more detail-oriented part of me has managed to block out the closing, painting, packing, moving, unpacking, fumigating, fixing things, fighting with utility companies, constantly finding new things that needed repair, spending several evenings a week at home improvement stores, running up credit card balances the likes of which I’d never seen in my life. I remember, and always will, the enormous sense of gratitude toward my friends who made it happen, and whose support, practical and moral, helped me get through the other things I remember: the exhaustion, the what-have-I-done feeling, the when-will-it-end feeling.

And then, in late winter/early spring, things settled down, i.e. the essentials were done, and I decided to ignore the non-essentials. I became increasingly happy living in the house.

This all helps me take the long view with regard to this roommate situation. It helps that it’s an interpersonal challenge, not a housing nightmare. I was prepared to share the house with someone else, but not to have someone to want to not just talk to me, but figure me out and demand a role in my life. It’s been cyclical, but now that it’s flaring again, I wonder why it’s taken me so long to realize that he’s beyond help.

He’s angry right now, probably upset, too. I haven’t seen him. He wrote (me?) a note on a post-it note and stuck it on a placemat on the dining room table—the one at the end where he usually sits. I only noticed it because it blew away, onto the chair, when I walked by. I picked it up, and it was a snide comment in response to something I’d written on a post-it not—that he mistakenly interpreted as being about him. I left the note on the chair; if he wants to talk about it, he can bring it up like an adult.

The thing is, there’s no way he could have seen what I’d written unless he’d specifically gone to read the post-it, which I’d stuck on a magazine. On the main part of the post-it, which I’d written on at work, I’d calculated when I’d have to leave work on Wednesday in order to pick up the CSA veggies and sort them before going to tutor orientation at the shelter. Then I jotted down, from an e-mail someone sent out in the office, the types of plastic less likely to contain harmful chemicals. On the very top, in very small writing—above the corporate logo of whichever entity published those post-its—I wrote a note about how someone (who was running a meeting) wouldn’t stop droning. Roommate managed to read that and interpret it to be about him. I haven’t seen him since—I don’t know if he’s already gone away from the weekend, but I doubt it, because he left an unwashed pot (with fruit flies swarming over it) in the kitchen and his laptop in his room.

I’m happy to talk to him about this—I can see why he would think that I’d have written it about him (there’s a reference to talking too much, too early in the morning, and maybe he thinks he’s the only one I talk to that early). I’m also happy to confront him about reading things that clearly weren’t meant for him; I mean, the post-it wasn’t private, but it was clearly nosy of him to scour it. Oh, and he still hasn’t written me a check for September.

As usual, this has made me think about what I could have and can do differently, not just about the note—which it didn’t occur to me that he would find, much less take personally—but about dealing with him. It’s not that I haven’t been assertive, but clearly I haven’t been assertive enough. I’ve made clear my preferences, and he’s acknowledged and then walked all over them. In his mind, I’m either pissed off at him or ready to be his best friend, no in-between—so if I’m anything but an ice queen, he thinks it’s okay to be in my face all the time. Why didn’t I feel like I could just say no to dinner last weekend, just say, “I’m sorry, but I was really looking forward to spending the evening catching up on reading”? That would have been perfectly legitimate, albeit cold. But there’s nothing wrong with cold when cold is called for.

This goes back to what I’ve been saying all along about why, in the long run, dealing with RM has been a constructive experience: I didn’t grow up with good people skills and conflict resolution skills modeled for me, and I had to actually learn them, sometimes the hard way and sometimes just the active way. My friends and I were talking about this last weekend—another friend was talking about her (Jewish) mother, and the similarities were striking: they know not that there is another way. More than anything, this realization makes me genuinely feel more patience and understanding toward my mother: her way of interacting with people is all she knows. Sad as it is, with some exceptions, until someone points out to you that you don’t actually have to yell at, insult and manipulate other people, you don’t know there are other options. I was really lucky to be in situations, such as workshops, where I was made aware of the alternatives, and, to give myself some credit, I was also responsive to positive modeling outside the home. I could see behavior and think, “huh—that was actually constructive and minimally acrimonious. There is another way.”

But I don’t have it all figured out—I still have a lot to learn about getting along with people—and I find myself tempted to interpret the roommate drama as a failure of my people skills. Sure, it’s him, but of course it’s also me. One thing that I’ve learned about myself is that I make my position clear, but I don’t follow through. I’m used to interacting with people for whom once is enough—and it’s a self-selecting group; I run far away from people who don’t listen—but roommate has taught me that sometimes it’s best to be firmer than you think necessary and leave no doubts. Of course, he’s also taught me that world views can differ so vastly that no amount of communication can bridge them—no matter what I say, it will go in one ear and out the other.

There’s also the issue of plain incompatibility. I wouldn’t think to dislike my roommate if he hadn’t tried to be my friend, but his pushing that dynamic forced me to think about whether I liked him or not. And I still can’t say that I dislike him, on a superficial level. I just find him very annoying at times.

I recently interacted with someone that I actually did like, but whose communication style disagreed with mine. I, personally, prefer a well-chosen balance between direct and indirect communication; there are times, situations, where it is best to be very clear and leave no room for doubt, and others where some strategic ambiguity is appropriate. There are times when spelling things out is not only unnecessary, but counterproductive. Of course, the tricky thing about communication is that you don’t always know that you’re not communicating until it’s too late, and if someone like me is talking to someone for whom anything other than very direct communication is tantamount to passive aggression, things will be lost in the interaction. Similarly, I don’t deal with people who are too reliant on understanding; I think some things are best articulated. But I acknowledge that everyone has his or her own balance, and that the right level of directness is very situation dependent.

So I’m continuing to turn the crisis of roommate drama into the opportunity of continuing to improve the ways in which I interact with people. I’ll let you know how the post-it wars turn out.