Don’t let the door slam you in the @$$ on your way out

On pg. 52 of the November 6 issue of Express is an interview with Walter Lamond, who has a blog of dos and don't for his (unborn) son: a primer on human decency. Over the last few weeks, inspired by that book/blog, as well as the Times piece on restaurant staff dos and don'ts, I developed a guide to roommate dos and don't. It's mostly based on my experience over the last six months, but a couple of issues inspired by other roommates have made it in there.

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Respect my boundaries and my privacy. Don’t come into either of my rooms without knocking, and if you knock and hear me say ‘yes,’ do not sit down and make yourself comfortable.

Outside of my rooms, make yourself at home, since you are. Don’t ask me if you can use the Tupperware—that’s what it’s there for. But don’t make yourself so at home that you feel free to zip up your pants as you’re leaving the bathroom rather than before (I’d put this in the creepy category, but lots of guys do this). Along those lines, keep your door closed when you’re getting dressed, even if you’re just zipping up.

Don’t be nosy or even vocal about my personal habits. I don’t constantly want to field comments about how I eat healthily. Nor do I want to hear my roommate (this was a different roommate) say, “I’d never guess how smart you guys are based on the crap you watch on tv.” I don’t make comments about your eating habits (if you don’t have something nice to say…). Along those lines, since you don’t cook, my being organized about the food I buy, cook and eat may seem like an “eating plan” to you, but it’s kind of what I have to do so my food doesn’t go bad.

No need to be overly effusive when offered food. Also, no need to accept food you have no interest in consuming. I won’t take it personally; I will, however, be disgusted at the sight of half a cookie with a bite mark in it on a plate on the dining room table.

My presence in the house does not indicate a willingness to spend the evening with you.
Our relationship is one of business, not affection; the basic assumption is that the person you live with will want to spend time at home without your being a part of her evening.

Be attentive to signals. The most obvious is whether or not your roommate wants to talk (hint: one-word responses mean that person doesn’t want to talk). That extends to content: if, every time you’ve asked your roommate what she did at work that day, she’s said something like “nothing interesting,” and every time you’ve asked her, in the morning, what she has planned at work that day, she says, “I’m enjoying not thinking about it until I get there,” that might be a sign that she doesn’t want to talk about work.

If you do want some of your roommate’s time, make sure you get the roommate’s say on the matter. Don’t just hijack them while they’re in the middle of something, and then act hurt when they prefer to go on with what they were doing.

Don’t make your guests my problem in any way, i.e. if you’re going to disappear to get your things together before going out, don’t leave the guest downstairs to make (painful) small talk with me.

When I have guests, don’t annoy them. Don’t interrogate them. Don’t do the peacock show-off thing. They don’t care what a long day you’ve worked or with which celebrities you’ve crossed paths. Nor do they want to hear your commentary on whatever we’re watching on tv. In fact, guests or no guests, I don’t want to hear your commentary on whatever I’m watching. Or on the conversation I’m having, since I no longer watch tv in your presence.

Another thing not to be: creepy. Don’t stare. Don’t touch your roommate’s feet (don’t touch your roommate, period). And don’t stock your cabinets and your side of the fridge with foods you never would have bought in your life, just because you see that your roommate has them. Don’t read notes I’ve left for myself. They’re not private, or I’d not have left them in the common areas, but it’s just creepy to deliberately take the time to read something that’s clearly not meant for you.

Don’t be manipulative. Don’t go sit elsewhere in the same room and whimper. Don’t slam doors or pout. If you can help it, don't be a moron.

Don’t give gifts regularly. Sure, Kevin and I would bring one another stuff from travels, particularly when those travels entailed caring for the other roommate’s cat. But frequent, ‘just because’ gifts are just creepy (especially when you say, “this is because I came home late”—remember, we are not friends). If a gift is in order, opt for an appropriate one (Kevin and I would opt for tea, Trader Joe’s gift cards, etc.). Pearl earrings-not appropriate. Immitations of things I have around the house-not appropriate.

Also regarding “don’t slam doors or pout”: your roommate welcomes your constructive feedback. If she’s doing something that bothers you (apart from rejecting your overtures of friendship), by all means, tell her. But pick a good time—and this goes the same for any conversation you want to have with your roommate. Don’t just blindside her and start talking.

On the flipside of that, don’t take feedback personally (and then go on to overcompensate—see below). Asking you to clean out the crumb tray is not a personal insult. Similarly, if I thank you for cleaning, I’m not saying I’ve now seen the light and do want to be your best friend after all.

Pay rent, on time. If you’re going to forget and pay rent late, upon being reminded, don’t forget five months in a row. After the first two forgettings, you may want to start leaving notes for yourself in your planner.

Rent’s not the only thing your roommate shouldn’t have to remind you about more than once. So you didn’t know how to recycle—fine. But once your roommate asked you several times to recycle, do it. Same with disposing of anything with traces of food on it into the covered trash. And so on. Don’t make your roommate repeat herself to the point where she decides that your skull is so impermeable that taking stuff out of the trash is less work than asking you again.

Do apologize; don’t overcompensate. Neither of us is a perfect being, and both of us do things that inconvenience the other. If you for got to pay the rent, or left the cat out, say you’re sorry and move on. Don’t make excuses or try to convince me it didn’t happen. Don’t look around for gratuitous services to do. Picking up my laundry, when I’ve set it down to get the hand towel from the bathroom, and taking it downstairs is just going to annoy me, and certainly isn’t going to make me forget about the late rent. Apologizing for the late rent, rather than saying things that make it sound like I’m unreasonable for requesting the rent, is going to make me forget about the late rent.

Use resources judiciously; turn the lights off when you leave a room. Recycle.

Respect generally accepted quiet hours. Just because your roommate is generally up by 6:30am on a Saturday, doesn’t mean you should assume she is, thus coming in and making lots of noise, until you see that her door is closed.

Do not take it upon yourself to wake your roommate up if you think she may have overslept. Your role is not that of alarm clock. On the same note, engage in no other acts of paternalism. If your roommate has left the house, you don’t need to think about whether or not she took her key, and you certainly don’t need to martyr yourself by staying home until she gets back, just in case. If you do, don’t then cite it as an example of how considerate you are.

Conversely, if you’re leaving the house, don’t assume your roommate is going to be home when you get back. Take your key, or at least ask her whether she has plans to leave.

That’s one example of the ‘when in doubt, ask’ principle. Don’t guess, and don’t try to surprise me. You don’t know me well enough—nor are you insightful enough—for a surprise to be a good thing. When you bought the pearl earrings, you thought that would be a great surprise. It was certainly a surprise.

Speaking of unwelcome surprises, don’t lead me to believe that someone’s breaking into the house. If you specifically tell me that you’re going to be out of town on a given evening and you change your mind, let me know before you come in and set off the alarm.

Don’t try to help without my permission—If I’m doing something (like changing a bike tire), don’t try to grab it out of my hands. It might be polite to ask (once). It’s not polite to insist once I’ve made it clear that it’s something I’d prefer to do on my own. However, do take initiatives on basic things (changing the battery on the smoke detector, etc.). RM does this, but I once had a roommate who would wait until I got home to inform me that the battery needed to be replaced. It was after 9pm and she’d been home since the afternoon. Oh, and I don’t mind putting away the dishes most of the time, but I don’t appreciate coming home from a business trip to a full dishwasher, when you’ve had at least several days to clean it out. And when you do clean or fix something, don’t strut around like you deserve a medal.

Significant cleaning aside, no one should be able to tell that you just used something, because you shouldn’t leave any signs, such as hair in the shower drain, stains on the counter, crumbs in the crumb tray (or worse, on the couch), etc.

Here’s another one inspired by a different roommate: do not ever use people dishes—especially mine—to serve a cat (or other animal).

Well, now that we’ve gone through all that… goodbye, and don’t let the door slam you in the @$$ on your way out.