#roommate issues

[furiousgoldfish]

(personal post, toxic friendship issue)

I'm having a reoccurring problem with a roommate, and I'm trying to write it down just to make sense of it, and see if this is something other people have figured out.

This person is younger than me, and also struggles with abusive relationships, emotional neglect from parents, and having their identity linked with academic success, so I naturally took the role of support, and this person happily took all the help they could get. I do feel I got over-involved in their life, I got invested in helping them get away from the abusive partner (which they did), and offered lots of consolation about the parents issue, and was just around whenever they needed someone, when they were sick, bored, struggling.

Sadly in return this person created more problems for me, like breaking my stuff 'accidentally', then not saying sorry or replacing it, even though I communicated to them that I can't afford new stuff, and that my possessions are all I have and I am bonded to them. They often made my emotional issues worse, showed no consideration or care when I was being hurt, and focused on talking about themselves even when I was in very apparent distress.

However this is not the reoccurring problem; I eventually banned them from touching my things and learned to pull away whenever I'm struggling myself. The problem is that this person will be nice, warm, polite, and I'll find myself making jokes and talking with them naturally, until at one point they want something from me - it's often that they need to unload all of their emotional issues on me, which can last up to 5 hours, and they know I'll comfort them because I physically can't stop myself, if someone in front of me is distressed my every cell is screaming to help them.

And then immediately after they're done doing that, they will turn cold and ignore me for about a week. This happened multiple times and every time I'm kind of baffled. When I have a 5 hour long deep emotional conversation with someone, I feel like we've gotten a little closer, I know stuff about them, I want to hear about how they're doing, and ask about their day, and would want to check in, see if they feel better after talking it out. But instead, they're now so busy they cannot say hi to me anymore, they go and have fun with other people instead, without telling me, without as much as looking at me. I think they start talking to me again only after they again want something.

And this makes me feel used. It's not normal to have that kind of vulnerable conversation with someone, receive comfort, and then just erase them out of your life. I'm realizing as I'm writing this that I'm describing myself in the role of 'comfort friend' where I only exist for someone when they need to be comforted, but this person is so sneaky about it! Because when they ignore me, I try to get distance, and I start to avoid them too, but this triggers me and creates tension in the air, and I can't stand living in tension. I emotionally spiral every time and start thinking of crazy scenarios like running away from here just so I don't have to look at them again. I live here!

So once they start being nice to me again I'm just, so relieved that things seem okay again. So I am nice back, and eventually it comes down again to them getting what they want and ignoring me again.

I thought about trying to communicate this to them, and to let them know how it makes me feel, but every time in the past I've attempted to communicate my feelings, they'd just ignore it, or get angry, act like I'm trying to guilt-trip them, or pretend it didn't happen, so I already have a picture of how they deal with communication they don't like; it's no use. When a person responds to attempt at communication with complete apathy you know they don't care to know this and they won't take it into consideration. And for me it would take so much courage to admit that I'm triggered to being ignored and shut out after offering support, and to be met with apathy and scorn would shut me down completely, I wouldn't be able to process that. My decision to not communicate is self preservation.

This person isn't going to stay here long term, they'll move out in a few months so this will no longer be a problem, but I'm struggling to know how should I possibly deal with this. It's so triggering I couldn't find anything good to do about it, I'm immediately trapped into this circle of having to help, and then feeling horrible and shunned by the cold treatment, especially when I haven't done anything to deserve it.

This person is also, aware that they don't have consideration for others, aware they just want attention, all the time, hates giving attention, will blatantly say no if I ask for anything, and is ready to guilt-trip anyone who asks them for something. They just don't care about it because it plays to their benefit.

What would you do in this situation?

[bitter-teeth]

“I promise I’m not a freak”

I sob as my roommate watches Haru strip on my screen.

Why does the worst things always happen when someone else is in the room. I’m here for the angst not the freaky stuff

[dredsina]

idk how much more stress my body can take

[manastro]

if you think I'm "scary" because of my mental illness, then I don't want you in my life.

on a completely unrelated note, my roommates an ableist.

he's been telling my friends that he's "intimidated by me" because I hallucinate.

I have replaced the salt in our salt shaker with sugar.

If he's gonna get ableist, I'm gonna get revenge.

[choco-mark]

I’M GOING TO CRY: IT’S LITERALLY MIDNIGHT HERE AND MY ROOMMATE JUST SHATTERED A GLASS TRYING TO MAKE DALGONA COFFEE 😭😭 i’m leaving wtffff

[turgidscum]

so this is my “roommate assignment” for next year. yeah, resident life got quite an email from me.

time to go eat my feelings.

[divinedragontamer]

“Don’t give me that look! It wasn’t my fault!”

“So what, it was one of the other two who decided our living room had to become a temporary greenhouse? Do you expect me to believe that?! The flowers need to go outside!”

[dearmrsbitch]

April 13, 2019 - Cleaning

         Dear Prudence,        

         I’ve been arguing with my boyfriend of a year over the state of his bathroom since we’ve been dating. I’m grossed out by it. He doesn’t seem to mind that there are always beard trimmings on the surfaces where I like to put my makeup on in the morning, a floor I can’t step on with bare feet, and stray pubic hairs and stains in the toilet. He argues that he’s not the only one who uses that bathroom and his roommate is the main cause of the mess. I don’t doubt this because my boyfriend’s room is always clean, and the rest of the house isn’t too bad either, but his roommate is like a tornado. My boyfriend doesn’t want to be the one cleaning up someone else’s mess, which I get. I also understand that it’s a dingy old house, so to some extent it will never be truly clean. But that doesn’t change the fact that someone should be cleaning the bathroom at least, say, once a month.        

         This has been at a stalemate for a while now. He’ll say I barely spend the night at his place (which is true), and I’ll ask when the last time he cleaned the bathroom was, and he’ll just roll his eyes. I’m seriously considering just not coming over to his place until he does it. I’ve threatened that before but never really followed through. We’re both fed up with this situation.        

         —Dirty Bathroom       

Dear Bathroom,

Ah, this scenario. The bane of anyone who has ever had college roommates or roommates in general.

Someone you live with was always raised in a damn barn, got no home training, has filth parents, etc.  Pick your excuse. 

You either get out, or clean, or get revenge.  There’s something rather off about a grown man, willing to live in filth, and not being upset about it.

I would kind of pay attention to that, you know?  It’s kind of a bit of a red flag that he’s neither upset enough to do anything, nor cares enough about you to do anything.  That’s not the sign of someone you really want living with you.

Even if he is clean on his own, still, I mean, eww?  At least, when I lived with filthy people during college, I would make sure that my areas were locked off and when people visited, I would clean up common areas or make damn sure they knew that I didn’t have a thing to do with them and would take them to clean areas to wash up.  My roommate in college ended up being violent, the bitch threatened me with a knife, so, I at least had an excuse. 

I don’t think he’s truly fed up, otherwise he’d be cleaning or confronting.  I think maybe you need to tell him to lay down the law with the new roommate or, see if the roommate can find a friend to move in with him and your boyfriend can get out of the lease.

Don’t move in with him just yet either.  You need to find out just how dedicated to being clean he is first.  Just tell him, look, I need you to do something if you are truly fed up with this, otherwise, I’m not coming over to spend the night anymore.

If he doesn’t act on it, then yeah, you dodged a bullet.  Because if he’s willing to put up with this, I guarantee you’ll be doing the cleaning when you two move in together and he won’t have a problem ignoring all your hard work.

Mrs. Bitch