BANGING MY HEAD AGAINST MY DESK...

     My roommate is my friend and while he is a good friend, he is a lousy roommate. I'm not sure if this thus makes him a lousy friend. Does it carry over?

     If your friend takes advantage of you, s/he is considered a bad friend so if my roommate is "allowing" me to do like 95-98% of the work around the apartment, is he not taking advantage of me and if so, does that make him a bad friend? Emotionally I feel that connection while logically, I separate them. I mean, I won't lend even my best friends money if I believe that I won't be paid back but that doesn't mean I think them a bad friend, just bad when it comes to money. I'm torn.

     Maybe it has to do with the fact that he has been unemployed since March and for nearly five months, did NOTHING to look for new work. Like a douchebag, I actually brought home an advertisement for Census work...y'know, a GOVERNMENT job...jobs which are practically synonymous with excessive pay. He would've been let go by now, it's temporary work...but it would've been temporary work at $20/hr. Instead, no...he's looking (or so he says) for work only now.

     The point being that he has basically been home all day doing NOTHING around the apartment. He actually had the gall to tell me when first fired that "now that he has all this extra free time, that he should really start doing more around the apartment since I'm doing it all the time." How fucking offensive is that? When you include travel time, I'm working over 40 hours a week, I still have to sleep and eat, and yet somehow, I have all this free time to do EVERYTHING around this apartment. I wanna believe that it's the "night shift fallacy" but I'm really having trouble with that.

     The "Night Shift Fallacy" is an assumption made by non-night shift workers. They believe that because we are home all day that we have more time to do stuff than they who have to work during more normal hours. Those who make this assumption, of course, have failed to take into account that WE HAVE TO SLEEP TOO. It's just we have to sleep during the day. When working the night shift, you have two options: you either have the morning or the afternoon, but not both. I personally choose to have the morning (going to sleep around noon). I've done the afternoon (going to sleep at about 7 a.m. and getting up at 3 p.m.) but without something to do, it's hard to get up on time. The temptation to sleep in is tremendous. WORK-LEISURE-SLEEP is the way I prefer to do it. WORK-SLEEP-LEISURE all too often becomes WORK-SLEEP-SLEEP SOME MORE :-)

     Anyways... I am completely convinced that he is not only perfectly content with the situation as is, but that he honestly believes that I am being an awesome roommate by doing it all for him rather than he is being a fucking lousy roommate by not doing his share. I would have never described him as narcissistic before, but I'm coming to that conclusion now. Even if it's not narcissism, it's definitely a parasitic relationship and it speaks poorly of him as a friend to allow this situation to continue.

     Should I say something? You would think so. He really offended me with his "all this free time/more around the apartment" comment. First of all, in order to do "more", you must first do SOMETHING. Maybe once a month, he will wash the dishes. And even then, I still have to do the dishes because he (for some reason) never washes the pots still on the stove. So even when he does the dishes, I have to do the dishes. Vacuum? Ha! Dust? What's that? Sweep the kitchen floor? Eh...the bugs'll get it. Wipe off the hair catch in the bathtub after a shower? Of course not! I think I've handled his pubic hair more than all his boyfriends/flings combined. Clean any room in the apartment? I must be insane... Clean his own room? Not even once...not that it matters seeing as how he has turned the living room into his de facto bedroom. Nah, I didn't wanna watch some television today. Put more cans of soda in the 'fridge when there's only one or two left (and especially when you've taken the last one)? Nah, I don't get thirsty... Once in a blue moon, he will take the garbage and recyclables out. And I would bet good money that he honestly believes he is contributing when he does so.

     Even when I'm cleaning the bathroom practically right in front of him, you would think that that alone might inspire him to maybe clean the living room or kitchen, but no. Why would he deprive me of my apparent purpose in life? He's such a thoughtful friend. He doesn't want me to think I am unneeded around here so he leaves it all for me to do.

      This apartment has a shitty circuit set-up so we can only have one air-conditioner and that A/C is not in my room, it's in his bedroom...I mean living room. If he were employed, this would not be a problem. On those really hot days this Summer has been sadistically throwing at us this year, I may have actually been able to rest comfortably in the living room but no, Mr. Deliberately-Unemployed gets to enjoy it while I try to sleep in a room that regularly topped 92+° for a lot of days this past July. While I've gotten used to it, at 92° it is almost impossible to sleep. I would open the door, but there's only so much noise I can sleep with and even then, the A/C can't cool my room. But he gets to relax comfortably. Fucking A! I even bought curtains to seal off the living room so the A/C doesn't have to work so hard and he just leaves them open. Thanks asshole. And does he even buy a fan so that the A/C doesn't have to run NON-STOP for a month? No. Even those few days when it was actually seasonably cool and I opened the windows. He would close them as soon as I would go to my room and turn the A/C on. Fucker. He says he can't afford a fan and yet he managed, like a drunk who's chronically broke yet never without a drink, to find the $35 necessary to buy a book of artwork for The Last Airbender cartoon. The fan I use cost less than that and it's rather effective.

     I am effectively being shut out of an apartment I co-rent because he won't get a fucking job. It's not as though the economy is the worst it's been since the early 1980s right? Oh wait, it is. Nah, it's easy to find work that pays $12+/hr. when unemployment is cresting 10%. And yet, because I am good at hiding my emotions, he actually believes that I am not bothered at all by this. Then he drops another bomb on me.

     He actually had the gall to tell me that if he couldn't find a job, that I might have to find a new roommate. Oh really? I'm just gonna room with a total stranger in an apartment where I can't lock my bedroom door? I'm out of friends who will live with me (though if you can afford $650/mo. plus half utilities (about $100-$150/mo.) I'm listening). You can't just dump a roommate on me. I have to have approval of it. And quite frankly, I won't. I simply don't trust anyone else that much (or at least don't trust anyone that much who is currently available and wanting the small bedroom in a 2BR apartment). Go ahead and leave me. Break the lease you signed and that I have an extensive paper trail of you paying half-rent for. Breaking contracts isn't illegal...no! Judge Judy would totally award me a judgement whereby you still pay what you owe. Yes, you've pissed me off to the point where I would have no qualms about suing you for what you owe. Congratulations.

     Believe it or not, I would take the loss of money and pay for this apartment by myself for a few months had he put in his part around here, had he honestly been looking for work the WHOLE time he was unemployed, had he actually done MORE (or even all) the work around this apartment while unemployed (y'know, to make up for the fact that he's not bringing in income). Yes, he has unemployment so while he has made his bills on time, he pisses me off by being such a willing recipient of the aid. Am I the only one who would actually be EMBARRASSED that I was collecting unemployment? Something tells me that if he qualified for foodstamps that he'd be happy as a pig in shit. But no, that's not how it's been happening. He's a leech to the system and a parasite of a friend.

     So why don't I say anything? The fact is, I am in no rush to start fighting with a friend I've known both for over a decade and with whom I have never actually fought with. That first one is always a doozy. The other fact is that he is a grown man and more importantly, that I am not his parent. No one told me to clean the bathroom, kitchen, living room, and my room. No one told me to sweep the floor, take out the garbage, vacuum, and dust. I just do it. Why? Because it's fucking dirty. That's why. And it's not like I clean totally at random. I do the dishes first thing upon getting home from work (I'm still in "work mode" so I get it out of the way before I settle down for my leisure period). He has from noon to when I get home if he were to do them practically every fucking day, but no and if by chance yes, I still have to wash the pots for some fucking reason. I understand not wanting to vacuum while I'm sleeping but I get up at eight and noise restrictions don't begin until ten. That's two fucking hours to do some noisy cleaning and all fucking day to do the quiet cleaning but no...and no, there has never been a yes to this. If he even knows how to work a vacuum, I would be surprised. His mattress, after a year, still lies on the floor like he's a squatter. He never bought a bedframe during the time he was working preferring to buy DVDs instead and waiting four months to finally buy a fucking couch for the living room (which I now practically regret as the couch has become his bed) cuz he didn't want to borrow money from me to do so. I hesitate to wonder what might be growing/living under that mattress since he has never changed the sheets on it.

     The other thing I don't get is he brought with him an old desktop computer. He got a laptop shortly thereafter. He ALWAYS works on the laptop, never the desktop yet the desktop is still in his room and it's on 24/7. Why? That one still baffles me. He has a desk he could be doing his work at yet instead he's in the living room so he leaves his virtually abandoned desktop to run constantly in his room. Did you ever just want to bang your head against a desk until it bled just because it all doesn't make any sense? How did I get stuck with this shit?