Dear Shitty Roommate

I can't say I'm not grateful.

I'm new to adulthood. I'm 20 years old. I've never signed a lease, I've never taken out a loan, I've never made car payments. After moving out of my parents' house less than a year ago in June, I've moved houses twice more, yours being the second.

At the time, I was staying at a friend-of-the-family's house. She didn't really have a spare bedroom, so I kept my furniture and my boxes in her garage while I slept in her daughter's bed and lived out of suitcases. She let me stay there rent-free under the condition that I cleaned her kitchen. This worked for a while, but it was uncomfortable, and, after finally landing a job (one that I enjoyed for a change), I was actively looking for somewhere to live, not just somewhere to stay.

In late August, she notified me of a distant friend of hers, who was looking for someone to rent out a room in his house. She gave me your contact information, and I came over on my lunch hour to meet you and to see the house, even though I was halfway out the door already, ready to pounce on any opportunity that would get me out of where I was then.

You were talkative but, from what I could tell, you were genuine. A divorcee in his forties with an adorable dog, supporting his family with the money he made, looking for a little extra income by renting out one of two extra bedrooms. Rent was reasonable, due before the first of the month. I disclosed that I was a private introvert, and you disclosed that you had lived in community housing before, and was used to living with roommates. I got no red flags, and I moved in less than two weeks later.

It was good for a while.

Then I got fired.

I was distraught; I loved the job, I loved the hours, I loved the company, I loved my coworkers. But one day, I was a single solitary minute late to work, and suddenly that was the last straw.

I hoped that I would be able to find a job before the next due date. It approached quickly, however, and things were not looking good. That's when I told you.

You seemed to be okay with it, but I started noticing a pattern in our conversations by this point. You did 95% of the talking, and you would talk forever. And you tried to father me. You turned everything into a life lesson, most of the time either telling me things I had already been told by my own father, or things that really weren't helpful at all.

After missing two months' rent, and after falling victim to an employment scam which stole from me $4,000 that I didn't have, I finally got a job. It was boring and soul-crushing, but it was a job. We worked out a plan to pay you back what I owed, and while those payments were staggered and uneven as I worked out paydays, had to get my own phone plan, and made payments toward massive amounts of debt, they happened. I paid off what I owed you in four months.

If you had been less of an ass, that would have been the whole story.

I don't take particularly kindly to know-it-alls. One of the things that I'm wisest to in my young age is the fact that the only thing anybody knows for sure is the fact that they don't know everything for sure. The thing that annoys me the most about some people is that they claim to know everything, condescendingly and scornfully. It's even worse when those people are doing it because they're older than you, and if you try in any way to point out any flaw in their logic, they will dismiss you immediately because you're younger than them, so how could you possibly know anything more than they do?

I got miserably sick during my first month of employment, and I took a day and a half off. You know, for my health. I know my capacities. I know how to take care of myself. I know myself better than you do. So don't tell me that taking a day off when I can't breathe because of the copious amounts of mucous flooding my lungs is a good way to get fired. Don't tell me to go into work when I'm sick so that they'll tell me to go home, because if they tell me to go home, I can't get fired. Don't fucking joke, when I start coughing while you're telling me all this and I really just want to go to bed, that, yes, that's a great example of how to act! Act sick, act like you're dying! Play it up! Spread the germs to your coworkers and take everyone else out with you! Don't take care of yourself, capitalism is more important!

You asked me what my plans for Christmas were. I answered honestly: I was going back home to see my parents.

"Good," you said, "You should respect your parents."

Uh... Okay... "I do," I responded.

You, in your wise-man, overly-fatherly, sage way, said one thing I will never forget.

"Not enough."

It takes a lot to make me angry. Sure, I get peeved, I get miffed, I get annoyed, just like most people. But seething rage takes some serious causation. There are two ways that are almost guaranteed to make me see red, to shake with anger, to clench my teeth, to see my pulse behind my eyes. One of these is to make assumptions such as this on my family.

Generally, if I get mad, I hold in my words. Mostly because I can't think straight enough to get out a coherent sentence, but also because if I can think of something, it's scathing, and it hurts. I'm good at using my words as weapons, and I don't like to rock the boat. I don't like to disturb the peace, I don't like to hurt people, I don't like to escalate a bad situation.

But my thoughts were loud, and they were plenty. How dare you. How dare you make assumptions about me, about my relationships, about my life. Is there something about me that tips you off to the idea that I hate my parents? My parents are my best friends. You've never met them, and you don't know me as well as you apparently think you do.

I couldn't help myself. "You don't know anything about my relationship with my parents. You've never met them."

"Well they never visit."

What the fuck?

"They hate the city," I told him honestly. It's why they moved to the country. It's not like they weren't invited. Plus, it's not like I would have anything to offer if I hosted them. They had come for my birthday, and we had a lovely time out. I had gone home to visit many times since living here. Who were you to claim that I didn't respect my parents enough because they never came to the house?

"That's weird," you said in disbelief, because god forbid anybody has a differing opinion.

I ended it there, but there were so many things I could have said, the premier of which being the good old classic "Fuck You".

There were little things on top of that. You came home while I was trying to sleep and made as much noise as you possibly could. Your dog didn't like me - she bit me, and it scarred. You were a hypocrite about the dishes; I left a cooking pot to soak after having cheese in it, and you got upset with me for not cleaning up after myself, when you ran the dishwasher possibly three times the entire time I lived there. I know, because you didn't buy detergent, obviously not knowing that we were out, for a whole week, and the dishes sat dirty in the dishwasher until I got paid and could afford to buy more. Not to mention the fact that I was the one who put your dishes in the dishwasher almost every time after you had left them in the sink, even though it was apparently a problem when I left mine in the sink for two seconds.

I've never felt more like I was living with a parent than when I was living here. Even at my own parents' house, I felt like I had more freedom, like I actually lived there. Now I barely feel like my room is my own. I feel like a prisoner.

When an old acquaintance from middle school posted on Facebook that she and her boyfriend were getting kicked out of their place short-notice and needed a roommate ASAP, I jumped at the chance. We connected, met up for coffee, talked logistics, and before I knew it she signed the lease. I was ready to move in by the end of that month.

I didn't want to tell you via text. I felt like that would be douchey. So I waited until a fateful evening when you might have been home while I was awake.

I was cooking. You said hi. I told you I had something I wanted to tell you. I told you I was moving at the end of the month. You said "okay," no big deal.

There was a moment of silence. Then you said, "That's in two weeks, isn't it?"

"Yeah, it is."

"That's less than 30 days' notice."

"Yeah, sorry about that. It was a little sudden."

It was silent some more, you sifted through the mail that I had brought in, then went upstairs.

Ten minutes later, you came back down. I was eating my noodles, minding my own business, when you decided to stir up some shit.

"You shouldn't take advantage of people."

What?

"...Am I taking advantage of people?" I genuinely asked.

"Yes, you're taking advantage of me. I didn't ask for first and last months' rent, you didn't give me 30 days' notice, so now I have to figure out some way to bridge that gap, and finding a new roommate is going to take a while."

Let's take apart the little nuggets of bullshit in that statement, shall we?

First of all, you're not a homeowner's association. You're not even a landlord. Based on the spending patterns that I've seen thus far, if I had given you first and last, you would have spent it all on bulk household items that you don't even use anyway so it wouldn't have done any good. You say you use your money to support your family, so why did you buy a new car, adding to the three you already had*? Why do you have four pairs of hiking boots? Why did you get a new stereo? Who are you buying all that Costco food for, when it just sits in the fridge or on the counter and rots? "Supporting your family" is a choice you make, especially when you don't even have any kids. If you can't afford to buy them the new things that they're asking for, then don't. You don't think I wish my parents supported me financially? They can't afford to, so they don't. And I still love them, and I still associate with them. I understand. I'm sure yours can too. And if they don't, they're frankly not worth your time, effort, and most of all, your money.

After you said that, you walked away.

"I'm sorry," I said meekly. I didn't know what else to say. The way you brushed it off initially gave me a false sense of security, so your random attack caught me off-guard.

"You're not sorry," you said, preparing to leave the house again, "because it doesn't affect you. You're just saying words, you're not really sorry."

You said goodbye to your dog, and with a slam of the door, you were gone again.

The second way to make me truly angry is to assume things about my character that are not true, especially when you automatically accept them as fact and don't give me room to defend myself. It infuriates me when a person is so closed-minded that the opinions that they have spun in their heads as facts are so rigid they can't be changed.

You know what? I am sorry. I'm sorry you don't believe humans can have empathy unless it serves them personally (that really says something about you, the fact that you believe that to be true). I'm sorry you haven't aged mentally past fifteen, despite telling me how to live my life like you know any better. I'm sorry you think you know everything. I'm sorry you think that all people are the same, that they want the same things, need the same things, feel the same way, experience life the same way. I'm sorry you don't see variance in personality, I'm sorry you don't see richness in diversity, and I'm sorry you're a manipulative child.

I'm not sorry for thinking these things or for feeling this way.

I was sorry for leaving you in the dust on short notice, but that remorse is gone. I'm not sorry for leaving.

I used to tell myself that I didn't hate you, I just hated living with you. But now I'm glad that, after I move, I have the freedom to block your number and to never interact with you again for as long as I live.

 Love,
Kayleigh


*When I moved in, he drove a red Mini Cooper. A black Jeep was parked behind a bush (apparently having been abandoned for a long time), and a white Subaru Forester took up the second parking spot in the driveway. He assured me that the Subaru would be gone soon so I could park in the driveway. However, instead, he bought a black SUV and stopped driving the Mini Cooper. I parked on the street the entire time I lived there.