10 Things I Hate About My Roommate

disclaimer: I found my roommate on Craigslist, so considering she hasn't turned out to be a serial killer or prostitute (yet!), I'm fairly satisfied. She also is reasonably clean, always pays the rent on time, and is gone a lot, so I actually do consider myself to be very fortunate. Now getting to the task at hand...

1. She runs the air conditioning like a mad woman. Not right now, obviously, because it's winter. But in the summer, she turned it on full blast 24/7, even while we were both at work. Now, I rarely use air conditioning because a) I am always cold, so I don't usually need it, b) I'm gone during the day and I love sleeping with the windows open at night, c) it wastes energy, and d) we PAY for it. Heat, on the other hand, we do not pay for. So I am fairly liberal with that, which is why I like to offset it by rarely using the AC.

2. She uses my two favorite hot chocolate mugs. Now, she doesn't have any dishes here (mainly because we don't have room for two full sets of dishes and I moved in first). And she loves coffee (which I also hate), and she always ALWAYS uses these two mugs immediately so they're dirty and I can never use them. Even though we have plenty of other normal mugs.

3. I'm pretty sure that I overheard her telling her friend that I'm "so weird." They thought I was asleep, but I was just reading in my room. I tried to eavesdrop and figure out why I'm "weird." I couldn't hear much because she was whispering, but I think I heard her say "orchid" (I bought one a couple of weeks ago), and "juice boxes" (which I drink with breakfast at work).

4. She is so loud. She yells everything. When she talks on her phone in her room, and I'm sitting in my room with the door closed, I can follow the conversation. She also likes to have these loud phone calls in the living room while I'm there watching tv. She blasts her music while she gets ready to go out (at 9pm on a Wednesday...I think that's weird).

5. She ignores me. When we first decided we were going to live together, I figured it would be good to get to know her a little. So I emailed her and asked her about herself (does she have a boyfriend? favorite movies? where did she go to school? etc). She did not answer a single one and obviously did not ask me any. Since moving in, she has set the precedent for our interactions. We are allowed to chat while we watch The Hills together on Monday nights. We complain about how evil Spencer is and how ridiculous Lauren is, but that's it. We do not greet one another when we enter the apartment (which can be really awkward), we do not say goodbye when we leave, we never ask each other questions, and we can therefore never talk about things that we would like to compromise on...like the following....

6. She is obsessed with keeping the window blinds down. Now, I like nature, I like being able to see the sun, see the trees, see that there is natural life out there in the world. And also, my orchid needs sunlight. But she keeps the shade down at all times. I don't know if she doesn't like seeing the outside or if she's afraid that people will be able to look in, but I wish we could compromise on this. I feel like it's gotten to the point where we're passive aggressively changing it to our respective desired heights whenever the other is out. Which is fine...I just ...don't get it. What's wrong with seeing the world?

7. She is inconsiderate. In addition to the loud phone calls and the hot chocolate mugs, she has inadvertently (I hope it wasn't intentional...) locked my cat into a closet or her room ALL DAY several times, she burned my spatula to a melted bubble when she placed it on the lower rack in the dishwasher and it fell onto the coil, she leaves her clothing in the dryer for hours on end so I can't use it, etc. And the worst part is that she doesn't even know she's done any of these things. And since we don't talk, I can't bring them up.

8. She is wasteful. There's the AC thing, and then she also runs the dishwasher half-full, and she does more loads of laundry than I ever thought possible.

9. I hate the smells that she's brought into the apartment. Did I mention I hate coffee? I hate it. And she drinks it every day. And not only does it smell like coffee, but it smells like some sort of flavored coffee. So it really just smells like syrup everywhere. Which might sound kind of tasty, but all the time? And everywhere? I also do not like her perfume/shampoo/whatever that is that it always smells like in here. It's very strong.

10. Her love seat. When she moved in last September, we discussed this love seat. I had a couch and everything, but she suggested that she could bring her love seat, though admitted that it was kind of ugly. And it is. Very. I like having a fairly pulled-together room. I'm not in college anymore, so all of my wood pieces are of the same general tone (a honey or caramel color), my couch is tan, and we have accents in sage green and sky blue. And her love seat is forest green and maroon plaid. PLAID. When she brought it in and said that it was ugly, I said, "well you could always get a slipcover." And it really seemed like she thought that was a great idea. Four months later? No slip cover in sight, and no mentions of it since. It is so fucking ugly, and such a big stand-out in the room, that I couldn't handle it anymore. I was not about to drop 150 bucks on a slipcover for HER love seat, so I covered it with an oatmeal-colored throw blanket. It definitely helps, but I just can't believe she won't fix it herself. She is a very looks-oriented person, so you'd think she would care that there is something super ugly in her living room. Guess not.