Roomate and Etiquette Hell
I have recently discovered a marvelous page, EtiquetteHell.com. Ehell is a collection of stories about Wedding, Every Day, and Business etiquette, and those who ignore such concepts. I ran across a tale in the Everyday section about a roommate from hell, and have decided to post my main RFH tale here. I have also sent the link to the proprietor of EHell, and due to the abundance of tales she receives, it will take a few months to post it, if it makes the grade. So here is my submission, as I have written it to her, hope you enjoy it!
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Perhaps a roommate from hell section could be added? I certainly have a few stories!
The main of my complaints spawn from my sophomore year roommate. After having dealt with the fuzziest-cutest-happiest (I despire cutesy fuzzy) roommate in the world, who had the habit of getting up at 6 am when she did not have class, or sleeping until 3 pm when she had class at 10 (then whining about how she missed class, again!) I decided for a room change. Due to overoccupancy issues, I was left to room with TheRFH of my dorm days. I know that problems between roomates should be discussed, but hopefully you will understand that no discussion could have saved me any grief. TheRFH was remarkabely rude. She always gave the impression that she was very considerate and polite, but the impression was proven wrong hundreds of times. Perhaps I am in the wrong on this one? Is it generally acceptable that when entering a shared-living space after a long hard day, it is polite to inquire about one's roomate's day? Any queries of "How was your day?" were greeted with a grunt or a cold "Fine." Which was delivered without any need to look at me, inquire as to my day, or even make general chitchat. Now, I admit I am very chatty person, however, when it has been establish that my company is not welcomed, I clam up and do my own thing. It wasn't like I taped the girl to her seat and launched in to manical rants about the weather or some such. I was just wondering how my roommate's day had gone.
TheRFH also had the insistence that she Could Not Stand flourescent lights, and as a result taped theatre lighting gels (used to color stagelights and stolen from my theatre) to our flourescent cases, to make the light seem more sunny. These fell off every day or so, as she used scotch instead of duct tape. Also, theatre gels are meant for thousand watt lights, from 30-100 feet away from the destination point. Flourescent lights lack the power, range, and light spectrum to use these gels efficiently, so in the end the gels did nothing, and RFH would sumply use her floor lamp and desk lamp instead.
TheRFH could not tolerate a equal-space environtment, nor a linear-furniture setup, and about 12x12 feet of the room was filled with oddly-arranged furniture, whereas I had about 3 and a half feetx12 of my own personal space, 3x12 feet of it was of course occupied by my furniture. TheRFH also enjoyed a leisurely wake-up, setting her alarm and her cell phone alarm for 7:15 and 7:20, respectively, then hitting 'snooze' until 10. I never use snooze, but one time I forgot to turn off my alarm and had hit snooze instead. After returning from my shower, I was greeted with a hostile "You left your alarm on, again. I had to shut it off! (I had never heard of doing such a thing before, so how could it be "again"?)." Another time, about a week before I was set to move out, I had slipped out of the room while she was asleep to brush my teeth, and had left the door ajar, perhaps an inch. "Dont leave the door open when i'm trying to SLEEP!" She raged. Funny, I had never commented upon her constantly leaving the door open while I was trying to sleep. Trying, I say, because her tendency to play video games until 4 am usually did not allow a restful environment. Nor did the tendency for her and her boyfriend to watch movies to 4 am, and her boyfriend shared her charming personality when in her company. His friends informed me at some point that when she was not around, he was a completely Nice Guy. As I usually 'turn in' around midnight, I was baffled as to how she could expect me to get any sleep while X Action Movie was blaring from her computer.
RFH and I also had a year-long thermostat battle. I used the "Comfort zone" concept, and would keep it at 70 degrees. It was the dorm, we did not pay for heat or elecricity. I would have preferred 76 some times, when the outside temperature was around 4 below. The highest I had seen RFH have the temperature was at "Off". She constantly turned the thing off when I wasn't looking! No exaggeration needed. Often I would get in bed and work on going to sleep, and I would hear her get up, walk to the thermostat, and turn it off (heaving a very angry and put-out Hrmph! while doing so). This included during the winter, and as a result, I kept about 3 sheets, 2 comforters, and 3 throw blankets on my bed at all times. Her attitude towards the thermostat eventually killed my favorite Betta, a tropical fish that should be kept in water about 75-85 degrees. The temperature sank so low while I was visiting my hometown for an extended weekend, and when I retured, Betta was covered in a half-inch of fungus. I think she did it on purpose, knowing that my sister (a bio major and fish afficionade) had planned on trying to breed Betta that summer, because his colorings and fins were gorgeous and unique. We even planned on buying a $50 betta to be his mate, and would have probably made around $500 from just one round of offspring. Thanks Roomie!
Truthfully, her eccentricites could have been overlooked, were it not for her social manners. As I said, she made absolutely ZERO attempts to be nice and have a conversation. I could have, and did, deal with having no space, no heat, no fish, and no sleep. But the true kicker was her AIM away messages. She would occasionally block my address, so she could use her away messages and profile to slam me. However, she did not block my sister's roommate (her ex roommate, also my future roommate), who would keep me informed. Such *painful* comments upon my person are listed below-
"i'm either doing homework, playing video games, or mentally swearing at my roommate"
"feelings about the weather :( " {small frowning face}
feelings about my boyfriend :D " {big smiling face}
feelings about my roommate >:O " {big angry face}
The kicker, as they say, was simply "Shut Up, Roomie" (as I had dared to speak to her about an hour earlier). After this one, two days before my departure from dorm life, I went outside, had a cigarette, and returned to the room. I calmly said "Hey RFH?" she glaringly replied "What?", to which I calmly responded "If you don't want to talk to me, just tell me. Don't be a coward and leave little s****y messages in your AIM profile." She didn't even have the guts to deny it, and said nothing!
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Perhaps a roommate from hell section could be added? I certainly have a few stories!
The main of my complaints spawn from my sophomore year roommate. After having dealt with the fuzziest-cutest-happiest (I despire cutesy fuzzy) roommate in the world, who had the habit of getting up at 6 am when she did not have class, or sleeping until 3 pm when she had class at 10 (then whining about how she missed class, again!) I decided for a room change. Due to overoccupancy issues, I was left to room with TheRFH of my dorm days. I know that problems between roomates should be discussed, but hopefully you will understand that no discussion could have saved me any grief. TheRFH was remarkabely rude. She always gave the impression that she was very considerate and polite, but the impression was proven wrong hundreds of times. Perhaps I am in the wrong on this one? Is it generally acceptable that when entering a shared-living space after a long hard day, it is polite to inquire about one's roomate's day? Any queries of "How was your day?" were greeted with a grunt or a cold "Fine." Which was delivered without any need to look at me, inquire as to my day, or even make general chitchat. Now, I admit I am very chatty person, however, when it has been establish that my company is not welcomed, I clam up and do my own thing. It wasn't like I taped the girl to her seat and launched in to manical rants about the weather or some such. I was just wondering how my roommate's day had gone.
TheRFH also had the insistence that she Could Not Stand flourescent lights, and as a result taped theatre lighting gels (used to color stagelights and stolen from my theatre) to our flourescent cases, to make the light seem more sunny. These fell off every day or so, as she used scotch instead of duct tape. Also, theatre gels are meant for thousand watt lights, from 30-100 feet away from the destination point. Flourescent lights lack the power, range, and light spectrum to use these gels efficiently, so in the end the gels did nothing, and RFH would sumply use her floor lamp and desk lamp instead.
TheRFH could not tolerate a equal-space environtment, nor a linear-furniture setup, and about 12x12 feet of the room was filled with oddly-arranged furniture, whereas I had about 3 and a half feetx12 of my own personal space, 3x12 feet of it was of course occupied by my furniture. TheRFH also enjoyed a leisurely wake-up, setting her alarm and her cell phone alarm for 7:15 and 7:20, respectively, then hitting 'snooze' until 10. I never use snooze, but one time I forgot to turn off my alarm and had hit snooze instead. After returning from my shower, I was greeted with a hostile "You left your alarm on, again. I had to shut it off! (I had never heard of doing such a thing before, so how could it be "again"?)." Another time, about a week before I was set to move out, I had slipped out of the room while she was asleep to brush my teeth, and had left the door ajar, perhaps an inch. "Dont leave the door open when i'm trying to SLEEP!" She raged. Funny, I had never commented upon her constantly leaving the door open while I was trying to sleep. Trying, I say, because her tendency to play video games until 4 am usually did not allow a restful environment. Nor did the tendency for her and her boyfriend to watch movies to 4 am, and her boyfriend shared her charming personality when in her company. His friends informed me at some point that when she was not around, he was a completely Nice Guy. As I usually 'turn in' around midnight, I was baffled as to how she could expect me to get any sleep while X Action Movie was blaring from her computer.
RFH and I also had a year-long thermostat battle. I used the "Comfort zone" concept, and would keep it at 70 degrees. It was the dorm, we did not pay for heat or elecricity. I would have preferred 76 some times, when the outside temperature was around 4 below. The highest I had seen RFH have the temperature was at "Off". She constantly turned the thing off when I wasn't looking! No exaggeration needed. Often I would get in bed and work on going to sleep, and I would hear her get up, walk to the thermostat, and turn it off (heaving a very angry and put-out Hrmph! while doing so). This included during the winter, and as a result, I kept about 3 sheets, 2 comforters, and 3 throw blankets on my bed at all times. Her attitude towards the thermostat eventually killed my favorite Betta, a tropical fish that should be kept in water about 75-85 degrees. The temperature sank so low while I was visiting my hometown for an extended weekend, and when I retured, Betta was covered in a half-inch of fungus. I think she did it on purpose, knowing that my sister (a bio major and fish afficionade) had planned on trying to breed Betta that summer, because his colorings and fins were gorgeous and unique. We even planned on buying a $50 betta to be his mate, and would have probably made around $500 from just one round of offspring. Thanks Roomie!
Truthfully, her eccentricites could have been overlooked, were it not for her social manners. As I said, she made absolutely ZERO attempts to be nice and have a conversation. I could have, and did, deal with having no space, no heat, no fish, and no sleep. But the true kicker was her AIM away messages. She would occasionally block my address, so she could use her away messages and profile to slam me. However, she did not block my sister's roommate (her ex roommate, also my future roommate), who would keep me informed. Such *painful* comments upon my person are listed below-
"i'm either doing homework, playing video games, or mentally swearing at my roommate"
"feelings about the weather :( " {small frowning face}
feelings about my boyfriend :D " {big smiling face}
feelings about my roommate >:O " {big angry face}
The kicker, as they say, was simply "Shut Up, Roomie" (as I had dared to speak to her about an hour earlier). After this one, two days before my departure from dorm life, I went outside, had a cigarette, and returned to the room. I calmly said "Hey RFH?" she glaringly replied "What?", to which I calmly responded "If you don't want to talk to me, just tell me. Don't be a coward and leave little s****y messages in your AIM profile." She didn't even have the guts to deny it, and said nothing!
posted by TheDame at 3:29 PM
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