October 31, 2008

Just Listen

A friend of mine was complaining about a roommate who was causing strife in his house. She was never happy with how dirty it was and was always demanding that it be cleaner, more organized. I’d been to this friend’s house and knew the disheveled state in which he lived. He was comfortable that way, with a set of paints and jars of water with wet brushes on a desk, a half-finished painting on an easel, a partially trued bicycle wheel perched in the corner, a cat lounging on the dresser. The hallway was adorned with all manner of discarded personal items found on the street. The living room was a patchwork of found furniture, old rugs, strange lamps. The kitchen, though full of wonderful cooking smells was always overflowing with dishes. This was his natural state and he was happy in it.

As he lamented, he declared that he’d gotten tired of trying to do the dishes because it was never enough, she was always unhappy with the mess, no matter what he did.

“Well, how long ago did she move in?”
“Oh a couple of months ago.”
“And didn’t she see the apartment when you guys interviewed her?”
“Oh yes.”
“And she agreed to move in anyway.”
“Yep. I should have known it then, she said something in the interview about how her former roommates were so messy and never talked to her, that they were mean to her.”
“You should have known then that she wouldn’t be happy there. She should have known that she wouldn’t be happy in your house. I’ve seen that place. I wouldn’t live there!”

He laughed. “Yeah, well, everyone else here is perfectly fine with it. She’s the one making all the noise. I should have listened to her in that interview.”

“Yep,” I said, “People always tell you what the problem is going to be pretty much within the first week of knowing them.”

We talked some more and compared situations in which we’d been warned about personality conflicts, peculiar foibles, and incompatibilities with roommates, co-workers and lovers. And after some reminiscing, we both agreed that in most cases, the thing that was the downfall of the relationship was always revealed early on, if only we had really paid attention.

People will reveal all sorts of things about themselves, but often we are looking for a situation to work, and so we make it work in our heads. We decide that the story about the new lover who cheated on an old lover (who wasn’t putting out anyways and therefore probably deserved it) is an isolated incident, not a habit. We think that a new roommate is going to be as easy-going as we are and be comfortable with our level of filth/cleanliness. We decide that a story about a girl who throws someone out of a bar is just a funny story until we find out that she’s got anger management issues and is about to throw us down the stairs.

My pal and I concluded our conversation.
“So basically, I should just pay more attention to their answers when I interview a new roommate!”
“Yes!” I laughed. “They’ll tell you what you need to know.”