[sybarite]

(((Epi))) I agree with AP. You are managing what sounds like an awful situation with patience, even if it doesn't feel that way. As you are thrown into such proximity with this girl all the time, is there any way you can start hanging out with some different people, at least sometimes? I think you need distance and some affirmation from people who aren't being slavish idiots around this girl. Your perspective on this is spot-on, try not to let other people's immaturity get to you.

Honestly, I would absolutely travel on your own for the six weeks. You will feel 100% better having gotten the distance and will have more fun following your nose on your travels. You've already done some travelling out there so it's shouldn't be brand new, and in my experience travel elsewhere in SE Asia can be easier than in China, if only because they've gotten used to English language tourists.

If you have any travel questions about SE ASia let me know; I'd be happy to help if I can. (You probably know more about travel in China than me by now!)

[epinephrine]

Thanks, AP. I don't really feel like I'm handling it well. I'm so fed up with her bullshit I'm antagonizing her now as much as she antagonizes me. I don't know what meds she's off of right now (and I'm not exactly joking when I say that - she's on a drug coctail for her various emotional problems and sometimes she forgets to take her pills), but she's been an absolute cow all week, snapping at me with no provocation. And I find it so hard not to take the bait when someone I don't respect talks to me like that, even though I know I'd be so much happier if I just let it roll off. I need to learn not to engage, even if it means letting her think she's right because she had the last word. She's such an insecure person and she's made me into the foil for her insecurities, alternately putting me down and looking to me for affirmation, and I just feel so...icky about it. I feel like I can't even be in the same room with her without being used as some kind of tool in her fucked up personal problems. No matter what I do, whether I ignore her or call her on her shit, I'm playing some part in her creepy, codependent, self-gratifying game. And it's really bad for me because I'm vulnerable to this kind of thing. This is bringing up all kinds of issues for me, too. Ugh. I hate her so much.

I'm going travelling for 6 weeks over spring festival and I've got to choose between travelling alone and travelling with her. As nervous as I am at the idea, I think I'd prefer to travel alone.

[auralpoison]

((((((((((Epi)))))))))) Ugh. I have to admit, you've been REALLY good about things for a LOOOOONG time with this person. You have. I'd have gone crackers within the first two weeks & I'd have given her the business AP-stylee in no uncertain terms & probably made her cry. You are holding up remarkably well all things considered. I wish I had some good advice for you, but the only roomie I ever had was my mom & I spent way too many nights poised over her sleeping form with a pillow contemplating her end to be of any use to you. Know we are here & we are listening. We've got yer back!

[epinephrine]

Well, the roommate saga continues. This week has been bad. She's just been jumping on every possible opportunity to prove her intellectual superiority and I've been jumping on every opportunity to put her in her place. In my irritation, I've started to get hung up on the idea of "deserving," which is dangerous and silly, I know. Every time my roommate makes some smart-assed, self-satisfied remark to me, or whenever I think she looks particularly stupid and pathetic, this monster rears up in me and says, "this idiot doesn't deserve to think she's better than you."

Another thing that started to really grate on me is the fact that my roommate, for reasons unfathomable to me, is considered to be an absolutely stunning beauty over here. I'm getting really sick of becoming invisible to the people I'm trying to be friends with because they become enamoured with my obnoxious roommate. They place a really high value on appearance in China. Despite the fact that her Chinese isn't as good as mine, she's not as aware of or respectful toward Chinese cultural differences as I am, she hasn't got a shred of common sense (did I mention that last week she asked me how to make tea?), she's messy and clumsy, her sense of humour is totally childish and flat, she's got incurable verbal diarrhea, and she's always making an embarrassing spectacle of herself with her loud voice, hand-waving and obnoxious donkey laugh, everyone's always fawning over her all the time. Constantly being passed over for this kind of person has not been good for my self-esteem. I know that I'm comparing us now and I know that this is turning into a jealousy issue, which is totally useless and unhealthy...but, like I said, it's been a bad week. In the past three days, I've had one shopkeeper call me fat and ugly thinking I didn't understand her and another compliment my roommate's skin right before telling me mine was bad while trying to sell us skin treatments. Then there was the crazy drunk security guard who approached us last week and started talking to us in his crazy Sichuan-accented toothless slur and told my roommate her Chinese was better than mine when I couldn't understand him - she ate that shit up and kept up a conversation with the guy for 20 minutes just to prove that she could, and kept bringing it up after with this smug satisfaction in her voice. There are days when I feel like no matter how good my Chinese is, no matter how well I integrate into the culture, no matter how capable I am of figuring things out for myself, no matter how much more intelligent my conversation is, no matter how pleasant I am to be around, I'm always going to lose out to her. People here see her luminous white skin, scrawny hips and narrow face, and they see her acting like an idiot and doing shit nobody would put up with in the west, and they think it's cute. It's hard not to be resentful.

The biggest trigger, though, is the situation with B, one of my good friends here. I was friends with him first, but gradually he started hanging out with us together and he clearly prefers her to me, despite the fact that he's more aware than anyone else here of her flaws. It hurts. And I fucking hate her for it.

[epinephrine]

Koffeewitch, you're right. She's a complicated, socially stunted girl with a really weird way of showing it, but she definitely does look up to me. I think she kind of thinks of me as an older sister.

I've talked to her many times about keeping the common areas neat and it seems to be gradually sinking in - the place is looking much better than it did a couple months ago. We've also been investing in various shelves and boxes and stuff for storage. She actually is trying, and I know I'm no picnic to live with, either.

I was wearing earplugs every night when I first got here, but they kind of irritated my ears and I kept ripping them out in my sleep so I gave up on them. Maybe I'll try it again and see if my ears can get used to it.

[koffeewitch]

Hmmm...Epi, your posts are giving me the idea that this young girl not only likes you, but maybe even (secretly) looks up to you in some ways, even if she's too insecure/busy trying to appear intellectually superior to admit it. Is there anyway that you could use this for your own benefit?

What would happen if you sat her down and asked if you guys could organize the room in order to have more space for doing _____(x)_____. I mean, instead of saying to her, "hey, can we do something about your mess", ask her how the two of you could organize the room for both your benefit. Ask her if you can keep an uncluttered communal area to be used for when you have friends over, etc. Would she be recepive to this?

And by all means, keep ear plugs for sleeping at night. I have this problem because my BF talks aloud to himself whenever he gets pissed off at the computer or what not. At 3a.m., I am awakened by him screaming, "JESUS FUCK" over and over again. I have no understanding of this; I can be pissed off and quiet at the same time, particularly when others are sleeping. Ear plugs are a goddess send.

[epinephrine]

Ugh. I hate this. I've been trying to get along with my roommate because I have no choice; I can either live with her annoying habits in a state of perpetual grouchy resentment or I can be nice to her and bear with her horrible roommate-ness as gracefully as I can. Although I hate the idea of compromising my living standards on her account and I often think she deserves to feel my wrath, I don't think I'll improve our living situation much by constantly voicing my annoyance with her. But my patience is completely gone and I'm finding it very difficult to be civil with her sometimes, even for my own sake. If I liked her it would be easier, but the truth is I don't particularly care for as a person any more than I care for her as a roommate. She's not a bad person per se, she's just not someone I'd ever be friends with and I find her incredibly irritating even in her good moments. To further exacerbate the awkwardness of this situation, she seems to consider me a close friend. How the fuck did this ever happen? Could this get any more awkward? Oh, yeah, that's right. We both kinda like the same guy right now.

Right now I'm fuming because my phone's nearly dead and she seems to have misplaced my charger when she unplugged it to plug hers in. She's not answering her phone, so I can't get in touch with her to ask her what the fuck she did with it - although I know that, even if I could get in touch with her, she would first deny ever unplugging it and would then have no idea where she put it. She does this all the time. I've got plans tonight and my phone is about to die. God. I fucking hate her, I swear.

ETA: it turns out my phone charger had gotten mixed up in my roommate's pile of crap that accumulates daily on the floor around her bed, and in a fit of annoyance yesterday I shoved the whole thing into a cupboard, thinking the charger must be hers since it was in her pile. So my missing phone charger was partly my fault. And I, as I seem to be doing more and more frequently these days, got completely bent out of shape over it. When I'm around her I hate myself almost as much as I hate her. I have to make some plans this weekend and get away from her for as long as possible or I'm going to lose my fucking mind.

[buttercups]

Oh man epi, you are in a bad spot! I wish I had some good advice for you, but when I had a reallyy bad roommate situation where my roommate turned into a downright mean bitch who was spreading rumors about me, my solution was literally to just not talk to her for an entire semester. It wasn't that I was being childish or whatever and ignoring her, it was just that I literally was boiling inside for months and it got to the point where she had hurt me so much that I just could not even talk to her. It was a really tense semester and I don't even know how I got through it.

Is there any way you could pull a mediator into this situation or something?? Someone who is a complete neutral outsider and you could explain everything to them and since this person is neutral maybe they could come up with some solutions that she would be more likely to follow? Or could you maybe schedule some time apart from each other in some way- where maybe you get the room from 12-3 and she gets the room from 3- 6 or something so you at least have a little time apart?

Ugh so sorry epi roommate troubles are the worst : (

[epinephrine]

So our cycles have synced up now. We both got our periods this weekend. Let's just say it's been tense. She's been driving me insane with her condescending remarks and constant fishing for affirmation. Every time I admit that I don't know something (which she never does) she immediately jumps in with an emphatic ''what, you didn't know that?'' She constantly tries to find ways to compare herself favourably to me. The other day I even heard her asking our friend, who was helping us with our homework, if hers was better than mine. Ugh. She's just so childish and insecure and gross. All day, every time I heard her voice next to me, I fantasized about elbowing her in the trachea.

[epinephrine]

Thank you guys for the sympathy and wise words. Persi, you're right about the rule pot. I scrapped that idea after sleeping on it a couple days; I decided instead to just write down my own expectations just to clarify them in my mind, so whenever I feel pissed with my roomie about something I'd be better prepared to have a rational talk with her about it. She really has improved a lot, I'm just really sensitive to her flaws because I get so offended by the way she talks to me sometimes. I find it really hard to cut her some slack. We're talking through our problems and working on building an understanding with each other, but it's going to take a lot of work, because our situation is just so intimate in nature. We're getting to know each other in fast forward, backwards, even.

[anarch]

Haven't got any wisdom to add, but just wanted to say


(((epinephrine)))

[Persiflager]

Ugh, poor epi! I can feel your stress vibrating off the page, and it really sucks that you don't have any private space in which you can relax. I think you're being way too hard on yourself - living in such close quarters with someone would bring out the worst in anyone. You're probably also seeing the worst side of her.

Some thoughts:

1) My flatmate also likes to spread his things round the living room. The compromise we have is that I get to pile it all up on a chair that I call 'R's big pile of crap'. It gets it mostly out of my way, and it encourages him to put things away sooner so that he doesn't have to sort through the big pile when he's looking for something (the big pile does get periodically cleared away). The first time that I did this was in a fit of annoyance, but I have checked that he's ok with this and doesn't find it passive-aggressive. Could you agree with your flatmate that you can chuck her stuff onto her bed, for example? Or just do it.

2) Take the initiative with cooking and say "Do you want to share dinner? Ok then, I'll cook and you wash up afterwards. Do you want to watch what I'm doing so that you can do it next time?".

3) Write down instructions for cooking rice.

4) If she cooks ANYTHING, eat it all and say how nice it was.

4) Can you ask any of your friends to ask her out somewhere? Or does she have any interests that you can encourage her to pursue without you?

To be honest, the rule pot sounds like it would start more arguments than it would solve.

Here's a really good metafilter thread on relationship hacks, many of which deal with cohabitation issues.

[epinephrine]

Oh, thank god - a roommate thread! My new, virtual, roommate-less home! *kicks back on the sofa*

God, I've got a situation here. I've already posted about my obnoxious roommate in the Fight Club thread and the Bustsecret thread, but I think it's time for some serious Bustie counselling. The truth is, I'm not handling my roommate's obnoxiousness very well. It's bringing out the obsessive compulsive, condescending, controlling, neurotic bitch in me, and that's not good, if only because it kind of robs me of my moral high ground when I'm trying to explain to myself and others why my roommate is so goddamn awful. Plus, moral high ground or no, I'd rather just be relaxed and happy with my room and my roomie and not agitated and uncomfortable all the time.

So here's the deal: I'm living in a 12x15" dorm room with this girl. She’s utterly domestically impaired and has some kind of mental block for neatness; left unchecked for an hour or two, her belongings will spread over every surface like some kind of invasive fungus. She doesn’t seem to mind living in her own squalor, but I sure as hell do. Mess makes me depressed. The way I see it, I have three options: 1) accept this as my own problem and deal with it myself (i.e. wordlessly clean up after her all the time), 2) refuse to accept or clean up after her mess and nag her until she cleans it up herself (i.e. be an anal-retentive bitch all the time) and 3) refuse to either nag her or clean up after her (i.e. live in her fucking mess). Obviously, none of these situations is acceptable. I've been trying to take the middle road and relax my expectations a bit, explain to her why her mess needs to be kept in check and take care of some of the more nitpicky things myself, but I feel like it's getting out of hand and snowballing into a whole control/boundary issue that I don't know how to deal with.

My roommate is also a very insecure, socially awkward person who seems to be incapable of hearing or regulating the tone of her voice (seriously - we're here to study Chinese and her spoken Chinese is horrible because of this) and she frequently makes remarks that sound condescending and snotty even when she claims she has no such intent. I'm often tempted to call bullshit, but I'm very uncomfortable claiming to know someone better than they know themselves. Nevertheless, from our first day here, I've often felt like she's trying to make me feel stupid. I have repeatedly confronted her about it and it's improved a little, but it's still a problem, and again, I feel that the situation is getting out of hand. Particularly in the beginning, when we were still basically strangers and I wasn't used to her awkward habits, I was really shocked at how she talked to me. Now, I feel like her rudeness (or what I perceive to be rudeness) gives me permission to be rude, or at least unusually assertive, because otherwise I'm being a doormat. My responses to her are getting stronger and more negative, and I know that this isn't cool. I guess I'm just getting desperate.

We are living in a foreign country with very limited grasp on the language. We really have no choice but to stick together a lot of the time because, in this situation, two heads are better (and safer) than one. But I feel like I'm living with a codependent leech sometimes. She's quite young and not that experienced at living on her own. I feel like I have to do everything all the time and I'm getting resentful. She can't cook; she can't clean; she can't make her own friends; she can't communicate well enough to go out on her own. On the one or two occasions she's ventured to make a pot of rice (a pot of fucking rice! In a fucking electric rice cooker!) she's needed my help - when I'm out having a life, she actually calls me to ask me how to make it. Every time I cook for myself, she asks if she can have some. I don't mind sharing, but I resent that she depends on it - if I don't cook, she just won't eat. I've started feeling really weird about that one and I'm actually refusing to share now, which I hate doing because it seems so spiteful and petty, but I just don't feel right indulging her codependency and then resenting it after. The cleaning situation has improved a bit, but it's taken a lot of nagging, and I still have to point out the messes before she sees them a lot of the time. She always wants to tag along with me when I go to meet friends, which is horrible because not only do I not get a break from her, it just reinforces her dependence on me.

Less toxic but no less annoying is her habit of talking nonstop. I’m not kidding. She never shuts up. And she waves her hands around spastically when she talks. She even keeps me up at night talking in her goddamn sleep. Whether I’m responding, responding impatiently, or even outright ignoring her, it never fucking stops. In fear for my sanity I’ve actually started straight up telling her I don’t feel like talking when she’s talking too much, but even then she doesn’t stop. I swear to god, I don’t have any more patience for this.

I already have issues with codependency, and this is a really bad situation for me to be in. It’s way too easy for me to slip into that mothering role and I do not want to be the mother of my 19-year-old roommate. I also really don’t like the grumpy, oversensitive, controlling person I turn into when I’m around her. I’m trying to get away from her whenever possible, but it’s not easy. This past week has been really tough and things kind of came to a head the other night when my patience was particularly thin. I suggested we each write up a set of house rules outlining our expectations for each other, negotiate them together, and then have a “rule pot” which we donate money to every time one of us breaks a rule, pisses the other person off, and generally disturbs the fragile peace and harmony of our cramped little room. Every month we'll spend the pot on groceries or something fun for the two of us. I feel pretty good about this, but I still don’t feel that the situation’s resolved. I’m still living with someone who’s essentially toxic to me, and moving out, switching roommates, or just avoiding each other are not options.

Ugh, sorry for the ridiculously long post. Thoughts?

[foryoursplendor]

I was woken up at 4am by the screeching sounds of the hot water pipes in the bathroom, after my room mate forgot to turn the water off... who does that? Then, I was kept awake by her screaming at the top of her lungs on the phone to her ex-girlfriend about her spreading rumours about how her vagina stinks and vengeance threats of counteracting the rumours with telling everyone she wouldn't go down on her. She eventually stopped because her phone died, but 30 mins later it all started again because she charged her phone.

She's moving out in 4 days, and is totally taking advantage of the that fact.

... its almost 6:30am now... sleep please?

[grrrlyouwant]

okay, it's done! thanks guys. she ended up coming over yesterday (completely unannounced i might add, grr), and we hung out at the park with another friend i hadn't seen in a while. it actually turned out to be a pretty nice day. anyway, at one point, other friend brought up "party at [my friend]'s house!" and she said "oh, [me] might be there too." and i just said, "um, no. it's nice that we're hanging out again, but i can't live with you. sorry, but i worked all those long and crazy hours to get promoted to a job with more pay so i could live on my own, and i don't want to go back to a roomie situation." she seemed to take it all right, maybe cause our other friend was there and she couldn't freak out and guilt-trip me, but i feel loads better having it out there.

[candycane_girl]

Grrrl, I agree with Persiflager, you should try to bring up the fact that the last time you guys lived together it was not good at all.

As for the whole "now I know who my real friends are" I think that's kind of rude. Yes, sometimes we rely on friends to offer us a place to stay but she should respect the fact that you won't be able to do that without losing your mind. I'm kind of curious as to what these grand gestures are that she has made in the past. Also, if she expects something in return then she isn't even doing them just for the sake of being nice, it shows that she'll only do something to get something else in return.

[sybarite]

Grrl, I absolutely agree with everything perisflager has said. Additionally, you will feel better once you've made your position clear and it will free her up to pursue other options. Your friendship may even improve because you won't feel pressured anymore, but it might be a good idea to help her out in other ways as suggested.

[Persiflager]

I'd just refuse politely - say that you and c-monkey are happy in your current place and you like living with just the two of you. And that you value her friendship, which you think would be seriously strained by the pressures of living together.

You may not be able to convince her of your point of view, but I'm not sure that you need to. I do think that you should tell her as soon as possible, so that she doesn't build her hopes up.

Is there anything else you could do to help her, like looking at ads for flatmates or asking around to see if anyone you know would be interested in sharing an apartment with her?

FWIW, I think you're making the right choice (for all of you).

[grrrlyouwant]

okay, i posted briefly on this in the letters thread, but i want to get some feedback. i don't remember if i posted it here or another thread, but a few years back when i was a brokeass student and had nowhere else to stay, a friend of mine took me in and let me crash on her couch. it ended up being an unmitigated disaster that ruined our friendship. between the lack of privacy, her two teenagers (one of whom was an occasionally violent little shit), her trying to mommy me, and some financial disagreements, it sucked royally, and she ended up kicking me out.

we started talking again several months ago, and we've kind've fallen back into our old friendship and just don't mention the time we lived together and drove each other crazy. she lost her job of eight years a couple months ago, and she's looking for work where i'm at, among other places. after an evening at the library working on her resume a couple weeks ago, she asked about the possibility of the two of us getting a place together if she gets hired on somewhere in town. she'd already been looking at different apartment complexes in the area and everything. i kind of avoided the issue and left her with a vague comment that i'd think about it.

i really don't want to live with her again. she's got this idea that it would work out great if i, c-monkey, her, and her daughter (the psycho kid, who has grown into an aimless pothead who bounces from friend to friend and occasionally comes home for food wouldn't be coming with them) got a two-bedroom apartment. i think it's just asking for the old drama to start up again. her daughter's sixteen now and has issues with sneaking out of the house or sneaking boys in while mom's at work, and every time i talk to her, which is two or three times a week, they've had some new argument. i don't want to deal with that shit right now, i'll have plenty of crappy teenager stuff of my own when c-monkey gets to be that age. signing up for two or three more years of it, and not even my kid, just seems like a special kind of stupid. and what happens if her son shows up needing a place to stay? i say no, for very good and valid reasons, and i end up looking like the bitch? i don't think so. we've also got very different ideas of cleanliness and child-rearing. i don't mind a little clutter around the house, and she babies her kids to the point that they're incapable of even doing their own dishes. i cannot abide a useless child, and at their ages, her kids should really be capable of more.

i don't care that moving in together would save me a few hundred a month on a rent, which could then be spent on the big cable package and other useless things that i'm doing just fine without right now, thank you very much. i like being able to afford my own place, and i have all the things i actually need. i might feel differently if we were both working minimum wage at wal-mart or something and needed to save money for necessities, but if she gets hired on where i work, she can afford her own damn apartment too. i don't want to get used to having extra money and extra things and then have do without when the inevitable blow-up happens, again. i don't want anyone else dictating my living situation or having a vote because they're on the lease. the whole point of working so hard the past few years and getting the position i've got now was to make enough money to where i wouldn't be forced to live with someone else in order to make ends meet.

so her job search thing has been going on for a couple of months now, and her calls are sounding increasingly less upbeat and chipper as her unemployment is held in limbo and no callbacks for interviews have come through, and i'm terrified that she's going to ask to move in with me until something comes through for her. or call and say she's got something, but it's only minimum wage, so we can that place together now, right? all those things that went wrong for those few months that i stayed with her will just as easily go wrong here. hell, i don't even have a couch. i'm grateful that she took me in for that short time, and a better person would return the favor. but me, i'm resentful already just thinking about her holding that obligation over my head, and she so would. she'd say it's okay and move in with her mom or something, but in her head she'd be thinking "well, guess i know who my real friends are!" i know, cause i've seen her do it to other people when they were unable or unwilling to return her grand gestures. or i'd cave and let her move in out of guilt and obligation and meanwhile be seething with hate and resentment for her the whole while.

so, how do i get her to see moving in together as a Very Bad Idea of Epic Fail without coming off as a selfish bitch or ruining our barely healing friendship with my refusal?

[Persiflager]

Grrrrrrrrrrrr! Useless ex-flatmate is disputing landlord charges as £150 relates to removal of furniture that wasn't his - dammit, what about the £300 for cleaning charges for all the mess he left? You can't make up for 3 years for neglect with one big burst of scrubbing, not with those stains. I really want him to just accept it so we can get the remainder of our deposits back - if I'm happy to split it, he should be.