TL;DR: Roommate's boyfriend is a manchild, pets and roommates paying the price. Also, I'm sorry for the thesis-like wall of text. This past summer, my (26) boyfriend (Wilfred, 22) of two years and I moved from a single-room apartment to a two-room apartment with a roommate (Rachel, 23) and her boyfriend has joined us (Anton, 22). We had met before moving in to discuss things like chores, division of finances, likes/dislikes and such, and it seemed like we had a good connection. I am older than my boyfriend and roommates, they are the same age though there is an incredible maturity gap between "us" and "them". Not so much "them", as it is just Anton. Myself, Rachel, and Wilfred have all been through poverty enough that we generally understand how to allocate our income and not overspend. The problems all seem to start with Anton, though. He has lived his entire like in a very affluent part of the area, and having grown up with a hearing impairment, has been doted on and spoiled to the point where he almost lives in another world. It is starting to get to the point where myself and Wilfred are just trying to figure out how to be gentle but firm enough in teaching him self responsibility. Most people can take a hint, some people need to have their hand held, and then there is Anton. To give you a small peek into this dude's brain, his parents bought him a new hatchback, they pay for everything about it, and he "drives into puddles because he thinks it's fun". He also veers off the road while driving and having a conversation with his passenger. I'm still trying to figure out how he passed his road test. Rachel is allergic to smoke and strong odors like perfume, and we have a neighbor in the building who has taken up in their bathroom. It ends up diffusing through our own bathroom and makes her quite sick. The first time it happened, Anton turned on a few fans and we opened our windows for a cross breeze. I have asthma so I completely understand why she would be upset. Anton, however, decided that "it was in the rental agreement that this is a no-smoking building" (it doesn't say that anywhere, at all, he literally just pulled it out of his ass because he wanted it to be so). He called the rental office after hours and left an unnecessarily long message complaining about it. The office called back the next day and said they would send maintenance to come see if there was anything they could do about it. When it happened the second time, Anton again brought up the "fact" that "this is a non-smoking building" and even Rachel interrupted and said "I have no idea where you're getting that from, it wasn't in the lease at all". She then went to go about her business as usual. Anton thought that it would be a brilliant idea to just go door to door in our building knocking on doors at about 9 in the evening to ask whoever is smoking to stop. Myself and Wilfred were ademant about not doing this, because we don't want to be known as "the whiny neighbors" or have any retaliation, and Anton has not learned the art of speaking tactfully. I tried to calmly tell him about our fear of retaliation, and he replied with "Well if anyone retaliates we'll just arrest them". Wilfred had to restrain from screaming in his face, and instead just repeated what Anton had obviously not thought through: "we'll just arrest them. WE'LL ARREST THEM. We are not the police, they know which vehicles are ours, and if we make trouble with the neighbors they can make our lives hell." Anton stared like he had been slapped with an epiphany. We managed to get through at least enough to keep him from going door to door, thankfully. The next brilliant move he had was spraying the ENTIRE apartment with Axe body spray. The three of us (Wifred, Rachel, and myself) had been sitting in the living room chatting when I heard the distinct sound of an aerosol can. Then the smell hit me, just a tiny bit- "Is he spraying Axe?". Rachel looked horrified and said "I hope not!" and walked into the hallway to find Anton successfully opening up a new hole in the ozone layer over our apartment. She flipped out at him, asking him why he would think it was a good idea and that she had already told him not to do it. She had ALREADY TOLD HIM that the spray makes her sick. Somehow he managed to selectively hear that. She ended up having to do all of her laundry, vaccuum, and air out the apartment all day in order to get rid of the sickening smell of cheap shitty body spray. Rachel works predominantly mornings, Wilfred is a student, I work second shift, and Anton has finally gotten a job bussing tables. Wilfred and I rarely get takeout or go out to eat, and when we have extra money we try to get ahead with our bills or get work done on the car. Anton is constantly asking us to go out to eat, and he and Rachel get takeout or go out to eat roughly 2-3 times a week. I'm curious as to where this money comes from, because Rachel still hasn't gotten her pets their necessary shots or veterinary exams. The dog has had her period and they just bought underwear to put on her while it happened, saying she'd get them fixed in a month or so. I told Rachel I know that it can get expensive, and that Wilfred and I will do our best to help where we can. However, after neglecting the cat litter box for over two weeks, leaving the dog with us for the weekend without checking to see if she had enough food (she ended up reimbursing us for the food we'd bought in lieu of our own groceries), and spending over a hundred dollars on bath and body works/expensive exotic tea (I'm not even exaggerating, they left the receipts lying around) I have reneged my willingness to assist financially due to the fact that the pets could have been fixed three times over. And yet Anton still wants us to "all go out for dinner", when I clearly say "we don't have the expendable income" he just offers to pay. I have seen his father's debit card lying on the floor out in the open. If I were an evil person, I would have been able to take it, buy whatever I wanted, and put it right back. His father is some kind of financial analyst, and I imagine knowing his son completely lost track of his debit card would infuriate him. He literally has no sense of personal responsibility, and I'm convinced that if Rachel broke up with him or his parents died he would get eaten by wolves within a week. It does get amusing sometimes. Anton has quite a bit of "Special Snowflake Syndrome", and claims he has a "gluten sensitivity". He has not been formally diagnosed by a doctor as someone who has Celiac disease, he simply diagnosed himself and "cannot eat" things made with gluten (as you can imagine, this leads to a lot of "organic" "gluten-free" crap in our refrigerator and cabinets- whatever, I'm not paying for it, though I imagine someone with Celiac disease would have a few choice words for him). I enjoy cooking, and am quite good at it. I enjoy making things from scratch and don't usually need a recipe. The first few times I had breaded chicken, I tried to be accommodating and use some gluten-free ingredients so that Anton could have some as well. He tried one piece and they sat in the fridge for a week. Apparently he "doesn't do leftovers". I'm not wasting my time with this bullshit anymore. The one day I had made cookies for myself and Wilfred on a whim because yum, scratch peanut butter cookies. Anton and Rachel came home about an hour later and Anton asked if the cookies were gluten free. Instead of responding with "No, and I didn't make them for you anyway", I just said "no, sorry". He pouted and then realized there was a box of gluten-free mix in the cupboard. Rachel told him to make them himself, and it was like watching a slow train wreck. Among the multitude of questions he asked were (I wish I were making this shit up) "What does it mean to soften the butter?" "So, do I just put it in a bowl in the microwave or can I just put it in without?" "How do I know when the oven is done preheating?" (It counts down x number of minutes and beeps to let you know it's ready, I have no idea how he missed that) "How do I know what temperature it's at?" (If you were never taught how to read a dial, you could just jiggle the dial and look at the LED display that tells you exactly what temperature you're choosing). He ran in and out of the kitchen showing Rachel the cookie mix box every minute or so, asking questions that most preteens could answer. Then, after a disturbing amount of silence in the kitchen, he calls out to Rachel: "What does 't-s-p' mean?". Yep, he doesn't know what a teaspoon is. A boxed cookie recipe that includes probably an egg, some water, and a little oil was too much for this kid. Not surprisingly they came out flat and pretty much liquidy- he took them out every few minutes to check on them, and then after they had cooled down he decided to put the dough-slurry back into the oven, fearing salmonella. A few weeks later I was deep-frying something and I tend to point the pan handle to the left so that I can hold it with my left hand and work the spatula with my right. I don't just leave it sticking out to spill- he apparently didn't realize that I knew this, and decided to give his expert input about “why don't you turn the handle so it doesn't spill and burn you?” I gritted my teeth and Rachel must have seen because she ushered him out of the kitchen saying “I think she knows what she's doing, why don't you get out of the kitchen and not be the idiot that hits the handle and burns himself?” Every time this kid makes food, he leaves out his dishes and whatever box/bag his meal comes in. I make it a point to not clean up after him, because if I wanted a child I'd have had one by now. He literally burned soup. I don't know how you do that. He also doesn't feel the need to help clean anything ever. Wilfred and I aren't complete slobs, but we are admittedly a bit messy. We contain the majority of the mess in our bedroom and strive to keep the kitchen and the living room at least presentable. Anton (prior to actually living with us and contributing rent) pulled me aside and said "I'm not trying to start a fight or be confrontational or anything, but please make sure you and Wilfred rinse your dishes before you put them in the dishwasher". I held back my rage and just nodded. Anton has never, ever done dishes. He barely knows how to load the dishwasher, and would much rather just leave his plates in the sink. That's not so much a sin, because the rest of us do the same and clear it out every other day or so. However, Rachel cleans up after herself whenever she's in the kitchen, we clean up after ourselves, and Anton just kind of... stands by. Wilfred was rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher when Anton came over to see if there were any plates. When Wilfred told him that the last ones were in the dishwasher, Anton asked if we had any paper plates. After confirming that we did not, he opted to take out a clean bowl from the cupboard-right in front of Wilfred, as he was doing the dishes. Apparently it's too much effort to hand wash one plate for yourself, and offering to assist with cleanup isn't necessary.
Back on the subject of pets, Wilfred and I often find ourselves making sure the dog and cat have food, I change the litter box as often as I can (I am not going to let the cat shit other places just because it's inconvenient to scoop it every other day, it's not fair to the animal), and we frequently take the dog out for potty breaks and walks. Rachel has told us that Anton “isn't strong enough” to control a 75 lb puppy, so he never has to walk her. Apparently that glosses over into the “never having to take care of any pets ever” territory. In short, my boyfriend and I take care of our roommate's pets more than she does, and her boyfriend “can't” help. He also gets mad when the dog starts to chew on things he leaves on the floor, like belts, MTG cards, and other random things. If it's that important, why would you leave it on the floor? Dog was acting ill a few days ago, drinking excessively and having general stomach issues. It was around midnight, I was supposed to work the next day and Wilfred had a major exam coming up. Rachel was hemming and hawing about taking her to a clinic due to having to work early in the morning (understandable) so Wilfred and I volunteered to take Dog to the clinic. Anton didn't bat an eye, because he had class later in that day and it was “totally important that he got sleep”. Wilfred's exam is negligible in importance, apparently. We got home at about four in the morning after making sure Dog was stable. Anton's mother came with the lot of us to the vet the next day, and all of a sudden Anton was able to hold the leash/walk the dog/loved her ooooh sooo much, even though most of the time he can't be arsed to even change her water dish. I see that I've written a whole essay. I know that it's grammatically butchered and probably syntactically a disaster, I hope you can forgive me. I am ready to kill Anton, and so is Wilfred. We keep trying to guide him to make the right decisions, but it's like hitting a brick wall- if it doesn't work in Anton's world, he just tries to bend reality to what he wants. If anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear them. Rachel herself is not perfect, but she is considerably more tolerable than Anton.
Submitted November 09, 2014 at 07:17AM by DoodyThrowawayAcct http://ift.tt/1uOM3XR offmychest
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