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November 13, 2007
Mates in the House Part II
Maslow has his hierarchy of needs. It makes sense. If you don't have your basic needs satisfied, nothing else matters. As soon as you have basic survival needs satisfied, you begin trying to make yourself comfortable. Once you're comfortable, blah, blah, blah.
After nearly two decades with housemates, I have developed a hierarchy of roommate needs.
When it comes to sharing living space with someone else, you hope for all of the levels, and they become bad roommates when one of the lower levels drops out. A person can be super nice, but if they stop paying the rent, there's going to be an issue. Just like real life, it is pretty rare to have someone who makes all the levels, but it is pretty lame how many never make the first one.
Let's use my very first roommate Breck as an example. Breck and I moved into an apartment in a seriously sketchy part of Phoenix, and was a friend from church and high school. We were only 18, but one would hope that by the time you moved out of your home, you'd be able to flush the toilet. However, every morning, I discovered his cold shit art coiling its way through the toilet. The main kicker was his constant failure to pay rent, which caused my account to bounce, as I wrote the check for the entire rent amount. Not amusing. After that first time, I ensured that my balance had sufficient to cover him, which saved me multiple times. Sweet guy, terrible roommate.
Once I bought my house in Lubbock, I had this gross renter named Travis. Not only did I have to kick him out once he owed me around 3 months of rent, he was a creepy slob and ATE HIS BOOGERS in public. My other renter Jeff and I would be mentally shrieking as he would sit in front of the television, his finger so deep in his nasal passages that I thought he might be touching the pleasure center of his brain. He would slowly draw his glistening finger out of his nostril, and then SUCK on his finger, making delicate sucking noises. All I'm gonna say is that Lubbock dust can produce some seriously large nose goblins.
Of course, wealthy-parents Jeff was a pretty good guy, although he had issues about having to clean the house, he always dated loudly giggling girls, and I almost killed him one month when he just bought a new $2000 stereo component, put new wheels on his Porsche, and then told me he didn't have the money for rent. Again, pretty nice guy, but some serious core problems as a roommate.
I'm just gonna say that the one roommate with the masturbation problem should have cleaned up the spooge stalagmite that he used frequently in the corner. I'm not gonna say your name, but you know who you are, and that was really gross. I definitely had to throw away the spatula and all other cleaning equipment. Paid the rent, but I should have charged you for having to clean up your 'pleasure corner.'
Then there was NY Bryan, who started out great. Talented, funny, and he kept the house really, really clean. In fact, he would stay up for 24 hours, obsessively cleaning, organizing my cd's, and using a sewing machine making giant flags for dancing. Then he started getting late on rent, sleeping at weird hours, lost his job, and began to get really crazy. Crystal meth does that to people. The final straws for me happened when my dog was chewing on a crack pipe he left on the floor, and when I almost accidentally put crystal meth on my chinese food. I'm not really familiar with drug paraphernalia, it came in little ziplock baggies and I thought it might be MSG/seasoning.
I replaced him with an ex-blogger named Michael who also became a Teaching Fellows teacher. I'll refer you to the hierarchy drawing. He paid the rent, cleaned up after himself, and even cleaned the house. He just really liked rules. One time he criticized my NY walking habit, as I am a fast walker, and will weave past people. He told me that "the sidewalk lines are meant to be followed," and when I asked what to do when I was going to bump into someone, he explained that people would just move out of the way if you were forceful. He slowly became the freakiest passive/aggressive person I've ever dealt with. I and my other roommate felt we were living with Joan Crawford, seriously. We definitely did not use wire hangers when hanging up his clothes. I think that starting teaching was really stressful for him, but he became brutally controlling in his relationship with us. He would do things like freak out because there was a smudge on his plate after I did the dishes, shoving me aside in the kitchen, angrily scrubbing the dish while chastising me. He always ripped into us for things that he did himself (he would clean the bathroom once in two months just before his boyfriend showed up, and then make me feel bad for not doing it first), and it turned into serious negative space in the loft. He then also brought out this crappy shelf system that blocked part of the kitchen, and when I offered to put my dishes away so we could have more space, he said "I know it sounds really crazy, but you're not allowed to touch any of my dishes. Teehee!" It did sound really crazy, and he was a major ass about it. He would still use my stuff, though. He scratched up one of my teflon pans, and when I asked him why he didn't treat my stuff with care, he told me that it didn't matter because my pans weren't quality anyway. Living with him became so freaky and negative, and when I finally asked him to leave, everything exploded a wee bit. After he left, my other roommate and I actually hugged, because a huge weight had lifted.
The most complicated relationship I had with a housemate had to be Dan. Was he the best or the worst? I still don't know. Things for which I am grateful-
Letting me, a total stranger, move into the loft.
Starting me on blogging.
Introducing me to some of my closest friends.
Helping me come to grips with some of my own issues with being gay.
Being a friend to me, which is the rarest type of roommate.
Unfortunately, he went through a meltdown. Yes, I know he had reasons, but his reactions really damaged people around him. Even though he was only 20 feet away in the loft, I had to learn of major changes via his blog; changes in his life; changes to my life. I learned that he was moving out on me by friends of his who read it on his blog, and only had weeks to come up with his part of the deposit, find a new roommate, and still tried to be his friend. I tried to just get past the screw, try to justify his behavior as someone trying to rebuild their life. However, he has repeated this process multiple times, each time not finding what he was looking for, then leaving wreckage in his wake. He just blogs about it. That makes me mad. I hope he finds happiness; I just don't want to see him again.
Maybe this goes back to Maslow. Maybe living with Dan was the beginning of a peak experience, maybe I still associate him with those heady first days of living in NYC. I saw Kiki & Herb for the first time because of him. I have this blog because of him. Maybe I can't forgive him because he didn't live up to my expectations, which are a lot higher in my 30's than they were in my 20's. Hell, he remembered to flush the toilet.
Posted by G at November 13, 2007 07:27 PM
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Comments
Michael: "NO, MORE, WIRE, HANGERS!!!"
Glenn after being beat w/ wire hanger: "Jesus CHRIST!"
Posted by: Doug at November 14, 2007 02:08 AM
Thanks, Glenn. I'll need to remember to not read your blog as I'm sitting down to breakfast. Some of that was a little too descriptive to try and eat while reading. ;-)
Posted by: Scott at November 14, 2007 07:55 AM
I guess you might as well hear from the other side of the aisle: I hate roommates. Too old to have them and have been since my twenties, but sometimes in New York, they become necessary. I followed tweaky Brian into the loft, sorta knowing Glenn but not all that well, but needing a new place to live. Bear wasn't all that sure she was crazy about Dex that first day, but I loved Glenn immediately. Oh sure, every meal he ever made began with shoving the ingredients under my nose and asking, "Does this smell bad?" and then eating it, no matter the response. And he does love some freaky cartoons. He can also be a little moody, but I find that interesting. And those, after digging through my brain, are about the worst things I can say about him. We used to walk each other's dogs, return each other's NetFlix, filled in the other's cultural gaps (I don't know how to use a hammer, Glenn can't spell Sondheim)...I'd move back in with Glenn in a New York minute.
Posted by: Charlie at November 14, 2007 11:48 AM
What a nightmare! I've only had a few roomates and they are always one of my best friends before we moved in together. That should be the rule - only be roomates with someone you already love and trust.
Posted by: Tony R at November 15, 2007 04:32 PM
Now this post made me smile! I have only ever lived with one person and JEBUS your right its difficult, he was a hairy bloke who would NEVER clean his thick black pe-abs from the shower, the toilet, the floor WHEREVER he sat, Grrrrr. I definately think I got my bit of OCD with cleaning from living with him, complete and utter P.I.G. I now live alone and at least I only have me to answer to, great post!! x
Posted by: Pixy at November 16, 2007 04:47 AM
This is why I live alone.
Posted by: Tony at November 16, 2007 11:55 AM
You and Joe [of JMG] have this uncanny ability to make me read something gross while I'm eating.
I'm glad I'm made of stronger stuff.
I hope. 0.o
Posted by: Stash at November 16, 2007 02:50 PM
HaHaHa...what a great post to send me off to bed. I've had some doozies too, but no one takes the cake better than some of Greg's roommates! There was the guy who took horse tranquilizers and brought home groups of men to gang bang him in the back of the apartment...and then he would ask us if we knew how many guys were there cause he couldn't remember....there was Carla, who never told us she was bipolar and then went off her meds....we had to call the men in white coats to get her....Greg called me to come help him and whispered in the phone "Seth, come quick, Carla's crazy!" before hanging up. I thought he was crazy until I got there and she was speaking in tongues....we never saw her again.
Posted by: seth at November 16, 2007 11:25 PM
My roomie horror stories are too numerous and lengthy to post.
CHARLIE!! You live!! Hope all is well! Pet Dex for me!
Posted by: Lee at November 18, 2007 04:04 AM
You had a roommate who spooged in the corner? That's just weird. I've had fairly good luck with roommates... well, maybe not so much now that I think about it. But in my first apartment, *I* was the bad one. I was a slob and lazy about paying bills. My last roommate situation was uncomfortable because I lived with a couple and their relationship was - and probably still is - in the process of failing, and they were both bona fide fucking slobs. Laundry in the living room, panties and bras all over the place, the kitchen always dirty with food lying out on the counters.
Then there was marriage: my spouse was a pig. Everything was filthy all the time and he left it all to me to clean. I hated it. But at least he gave me money to pay the bills with.
Great post, very funny, btw. You rock.
Posted by: goblinbox at November 18, 2007 11:34 PM
Well, what is Derek going to have to do wrong to merit his own posting? Because that would be consistent with pattern.
Posted by: Joe Clark at November 19, 2007 12:04 AM
Wow...there's not really alot that can make me cringe or react just by reading about it...but the description of your snot-sucking roommate made me gag...seriously.
I commend you on achieving the impossible, and for co-habitating with all those people without committing a single homicide!
Posted by: Frank at November 19, 2007 03:00 AM