(All names have been changed and all events are exactly as I remember them)
In May of 2014 I was excited to finally move into a good living situation. I'm a senior in college and I've moved about 6 times and had a whole host of crazy, mean, dirty and down right nasty roommates. I also have a dog, which makes finding good roommates and a space with a good yard impossible. But I did it! I was moving into an amazing (and affordable!!!) house across the street from campus with close friends. I would be sharing a basement with my best friend, Aliyah, my two guy friends (Owen and Jack) have the main floor rooms and one more girl (Britta) in the attic room. The plan for the basement was for Aliyah and I to combine clothing and turn the entire basement space into a closet since we're the same size and can share clothing. I also shared a bathroom with Aliyah while the other three share the bathroom upstairs. Move in weekend was awesome, we all had a great time and we all felt really confident about the year to come.
This is the story of how my best friend turned into my worst roommate ever. I really wish I was kidding about her being the worst roommate ever, but after sitting down with Owen and Jack today to voice my concerns about the upcoming year I found out they both have been counting down the days to her moving out as well. In fact I found out I'm not alone in a majority of my frustrations with her.
Summer was great, we all went home to visit family and since some of our families are oceans away it left the house with no more than half capacity most of the summer. It gave all the various dynamics time to develop, at one point I was alone in the house with each different roommate this summer. I love them all so much, even Aliyah and I had a blast hanging out all summer. It wasn't until all five of us moved in the week before school that I started to notice changes.
The battles started small, things like Aliyah taking a long shower, meaning if I was going to make it to work on time I'd have to shorten my shower. It got so bad I had to make a shower schedule. Aliyah stopped doing her dishes, just leaving them on the counter or in our sink. Then it happened, my boyfriend and I broke up. I was hurt, but I'm tough and I moved on. Aliyah has been through a few break ups with me and she knows how I deal with them. I enjoy a bottle of wine, smoke some weed, watch Wilfred, snuggle with my dog and maybe cry and I need to do all of that alone. I need the alone time. When I'm ready to talk I will, and sometimes I just don't want or even need to talk. After the break up I went with my usual wine and puppy snuggles, I wanted to talk but Aliyah wasn't home so I smoked and talked with Jack for a long time. Turns out Aliyah got home within that time, heard me talking to Jack and so naturally she started tweeting about her frustrations. My favorite being "So this is what best friends are for".
Things took a weird turn from there. She started going home a lot more, and she would cancel plans with me so she could take off for the weekend. Sometimes she wouldn't even give a warning she'd just run off and no one would know where she had gone or when she was coming back.
During the weeks she would slam her door, ignore me and just avoid all public spaces of the house. I assumed her anxiety was acting up, I even was concerned about her being depressed at one point. I would knock on her door or try to talk to her and just get the same "I'm fine!" response. After a few I just gave up and continued on with my life. Eventually I realized why she was giving me the cold shoulder, I never turned to her after my break up. She was upset and basically doing her version of what I did to her, to me. She felt I shut her out, so she shut me out. Also she was mad at Jack for being the one to be there for me, poor Jack. Turns out the going home was just a way for her to ignore her roommates more effectively.
Her going home time and time again wouldn't have been so bad, except she kept taking my clothes with her. My favorite leggings would disappear, or I'd be looking for a sweatshirt and realize it probably wasn't in the house. I made a request to her that we ask each other before either of us would take clothing with us on any trips out of the city. I thought that cleared things up, until the next weekend when I went to grab my favorite scarf. My brother got it for me for Christmas a few years ago, its wearing out, falling apart and its getting kind of ratty but I still wear it almost every day. I keep it hanging in my room because I don't want to share it. I spent two hours, two full hours tearing apart my room until I realized that Aliyah probably had it with her. Sure enough she showed up wearing it Sunday night. I don't know why that got under my skin so much, but it did. I can usually keep my cool but this time was different, so I spent the next 24 hours moving all of my clothing into my bedroom. Which also doesn't seem like a big deal but my room was built without a closet and finding a place to store and keep my clothing organized was a challenge.
After quietly moving all of my stuff I kept my bedroom door locked while figuring out how to tell Aliyah I had taken my clothing back. But before I had a chance to talk to her about it she apparently tried to steal more of my clothing. She came home from school that night and went directly into her room, while I was making my dinner she confronted me about why my door was locked. I guess when she had tried to go into my room to grab my scarf she discovered that the door was locked. She openly admitted to walking into my room whenever she wanted to grab any of my scarves like that was a totally okay thing for her to do. She was surprisingly okay with not sharing clothing anymore, assuming she took a month to give me back my jeggings and a few other odds and ends because she was trying to find them in the disaster of her room not because she was holding them hostage...
I get that none of this sounds too crazy so far, but I felt like I had to lay the groundwork for some of the stories I could tell. Some of my favorite stories:
The one where Aliyah "cracks a rib" (About 10 hours after BurtonBabe gets put on crutches)
The one where Aliyah
The one where Aliyah moves to the Attic
The one where Guy #1 finds out about Guy #2 and its all BurtonBabe's fault (actually Guy #1 found out about Guy #3, but thinks Guy #3 is actually Guy #2 and that there is no Guy #3)
Other highlights include:
Aliyah dusts with the toilet cleaning brush
Aliyah dog sits
Aliyah doesn't pay utilities, but she does buy lingerie
Aliyah grows mold in our refrigerator
Aliyah and the mouse trap
Aliyah gets so drunk she spits on BurtonBabe
Aliyah spends $100 on a halloween costume then begs parents for grocery money
But the best one is where Aliyah moves home for the entire winter break and Burtonbabe (&dog), Owen and Jack have an amazing month of peace and harmony.
TL;DR: A bunch of background info, Aliyah is a horrible roommate and future posts will be much better I promise. Especially the one where Aliyah tries to date three guys at the same time.
EDIT: Formatting
Submitted January 09, 2015 at 01:47PM by burtonbabe http://ift.tt/1xXtWAE badroommates
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