Outright Lie

So I was just kidding about feeling a lot better after my conversation with Jules last night. It turns out she felt so bad about creating such an awkward situation for our friends that she apologized to Sarah today. And of course, Sarah’s reaction is to go out of her way to make my living situation a little bit harder.

Apparently, Sarah told Jules that there was no need to apologize, that she and Rob didn’t have a problem at all, and that the awkwardness was all in my head.

Excuse me?

Were Nicole and I the ones to get all pissed off because we were excluded from Jules and Matt’s conversation? Were we the ones getting cranky because they didn’t offer us any beer?

No!

But it’s my word against Sarah’s, and now Jules thinks that I only brought up the awkward situation our guests were in to guilt trip her.

Sarah always claimed that she wasn’t a calculating person, but trying to screw with my good relationship with Jules is pretty fucking catty. Though this explains why Sarah had so many fallouts with her friends in high school. Poor thing.

Jules

During finals week of Spring semester, I hid out in my office a lot; the conference rooms were great for studying. My co-worker, Matt, was there until 6 AM every day trying to meet a deadline, so we spent a lot of time together. We had tons of fun “working/studying”, and I felt like I had made a really good friend. So it made me feel a little bit weird when he and my roommate started getting along a little too well.

On the 4th of July, Jules and I went to watch the fireworks with Matt and some of his friends. It turned into a big roof party where I ran into several other friends. While I was catching up with them, Jules and Matt were hitting it off. Since then, Jules has been not-so-secretly trying to see Matt again. She planned a small dinner party like the last one we had. Sarah invited Hipster Rob again, I invited my friend Nicole, and Jules invited Matt.

Matt showed up first and the two of them immediately became immersed in their own conversation over their beers. When Nicole arrived, we retreated to my room to leave them alone. Rob stayed with Sarah to try to join their conversation. In my room, Nicole and I quickly assessed the situation.

“Roommate, I thought you were inviting me to a dinner party! That was totally awkward out there. What’s going on with those two?”

“Is it bad that Jules making a play for Matt bothers me?” I asked. “I just wish she had told me straight out instead of pretending like this was supposed to be a party for everyone.”

A little while later, Rob and Sarah came into my room, both miffed.

“What is going on with Jules and Matt?” Sarah demanded. “That was so awkward!”

“They didn’t even offer us a beer!” Rob complained indignantly.

“Well, I remember Jules telling me that she and Matt had a mini-drinking contest between the two of them, so they probably need those few cans,” I explained. “I’ll ask her about it afterward.”

“Whatever, we’re going to go smoke.” Sarah and Rob left to smoke out on the porch.

Later that night, when Jules and I were both in our beds, I worked up the guts to tell Jules that I knew she had a thing for Matt.

“Why did you hide it from me? It would’ve been a lot less awkward if you had just gone out with Matt and avoided the whole dinner party thing altogether. Nicole, Sarah, and Rob were asking me about it after the awkward situation in the kitchen!”

“I know, I’m so sorry! I was afraid of how you’d react and of maybe messing things up,” Jules explained sincerely.

The conversation turned into a really good and emotional discussion, and I feel like I understand why Jules and I sometimes clashed despite the fun times we have together. She and I are from completely opposite upbringings, so our perspectives on many situations are very distinct (she’s the eternal optimist, whereas I’m the cynical realist). I think we both came away from that talk understanding each other a lot better, which means only more good roommate times to come!

Hannah

Victoria, my sometimes ally in the apartment, is moving out at the end of the summer. She graduated in June and is starting the 9 – 5 phase of her life. I’m really bummed because she was so sweet–helping me clean, lending me random costumes for the themed parties, good roommate things.

She found a girl on Craigslist who was interested in the smaller single in our apartment. The new girl, Hannah, came to the apartment to take a look at the room, fell in love with it, and interviewed for us. She seemed really quiet and responsible when we spoke to her, so we agreed to add her to the contract as a subletter. I took care of the paperwork (surprised?), which was a fiasco having to mail it back and forth between us, Hannah, and our landlord several times.

Anyway. Hannah was to take over Victoria’s lease on August 15th. Sarah is vacationing with her family in Asia that week, Victoria and Jules are moving out, and I’m doing overtime at work to launch a new application, so it would be a very hectic week for us to help Hannah move in. I explained the situation to Hannah, hoping we could work a different arrangement out.

“Hey, Hannah. Since none of us are going to be around for sure to give you keys and help you get settled in, would it be okay if you waited a couple days before moving in? Say, the 20th when Sarah will be back for sure?”

“If you guys don’t let me move in until the 20th, I’d like my rent prorated for the days I’m not living the apartment,” Hannah said flat out.

“Hannah,” I started out sweetly, “the landlord is not going to prorate your rent for five days when there are three of us already living in the apartment. It’s just a matter of timing!”

“Well, then I’d like you guys to reimburse my rent for the days before I’m allowed to move in.”

Ugh. I don’t want to deal with this tightwad right now. “All right, all right. We’ll figure out a way for you to move in on August 15. Please get the entire rent amount to me ahead of time.”

This does not bode well for new roommate relations.

Never Good Enough

My efforts to stay in touch with Sara have completely failed, as I found out while Sarah was jabbering away on the phone yesterday.

“So have you been talking to Roommate a lot?” Sarah asked.

I couldn’t hear Sara’s responses, but I could guess what she said from Sarah’s side of the conversation.

“What kind of excuse is ‘I don’t want to bother you at work or interrupt going out with your friends’?” Sarah scoffed.

Wait a minute. When Sara first arrived in D.C. for her internship, she confided to me that she didn’t like her roommates and that she was afraid that she wouldn’t meet anyone cool over there. So I encouraged her to be more confident, to give her roommates a chance, and to go out with them/other interns.

“I can’t believe you and Roommate never talk! …. I know, it does sound like she doesn’t even care.”

So after Sara took my advice, she’s complaining that I don’t want to call while she’s out with her new friends? Typical.

“Wow, she asks you 10 questions about is what your living situation is like? …. God, you’re right. That’s so annoying!”

…. Let me get this straight. You want me to be interested in your life. All right, done. But now you don’t want to answer questions that I ask out of interest in your life?

Nothing I do for these bitches is ever good enough.

Pear

I’ve been trying really hard to stay in touch with Sara while she is away this summer because she is moving back into the double room with me come Fall semester… and it’d be kind of awkward if we weren’t speaking.

We were on the phone today, and I admitted that I knew about how Sarah feels about my clothes.

“It kind of hurts to know that she is judging what I’m wearing so harshly, especially when I can’t really help the circumstances,” I said carefully.

“Yeah, I understand.” Sara continued, “I mean, I prefer Diesel jeans because they fit me really well. And Sarah usually has really good taste, but those gray skinny jeans she just bought makes her look like a huge pear.”

“Uh, does she know that?”

“No, I’d never tell her to her face.” [Of course. Backstabbers don't ever confront people.] “Plus she’s really insecure so I don’t want to make it worse.”

Wait, what?! Sarah the Queen of Greatness is insecure?

“That’s why she tries so hard to be ‘in’ with Jason’s hipster friends.” Sara went on, “It’s so obvious that Sarah wants to be accepted in the hipster crowd since she has never had many friends.”

Suddenly, I wasn’t so surprised anymore. It’s a tell-tale sign of insecurity to proclaim your superiority over others. I actually kind of feel bad for her now. I must be going crazy.

The Stars Aren’t Blind, They’re Deaf

The room that Jules and I are sharing has a window that faces the yard right next to our stoop, where Sarah began sitting after the incident on our neighbor’s porch. Unfortunately, that means Sarah’s constant ranting is too easily overheard.

Today, she was on the phone with Sara to discuss a matter of utmost importance: my jeans.

“I think that Roommate totally underestimates my hate for cheap jeans,” Sarah griped.

Let’s clear this up now–my family is not well-off financially, and the little money I make working 10 hours a week goes to groceries, textbooks, and bills.

“Like, she really does not get how much I detest generic denim! Her clothes look sooo tacky.”

I suppose I can’t expect either of the Sara(h)s to understand my situation (which I don’t think is uncommon) since neither work and their parents pay for their 7s.

“Speaking of jeans, I was looking online and I found this pair of Citizens and another pair of Diesels. I don’t know if I should buy them both since I already have two pairs of Diesels.”

Of course, as I’m trying to get some work done in my room, I’m groaning because I can’t block out the ringing sounds of Sarah’s elitism.

When Sarah finished her rant about inferior denim, it got worse. She moved into the kitchen and began to blast her hipster music. Everyone in our apartment is elitist about their music tastes (except on days where we all pull out the old BSB/NSYNC album), so I was rather surprised to hear this song blaring through the house.

“I can’t help it! I know it’s Paris Hilton, but it’s so catchy,” Sarah responded to my request to spare my ears.

Note: I apologize for linking you all to that video.

Privacy: Reserved for the Elite

Living in an apartment, we share a backyard (of sorts, mostly gravel) with our neighbors. There is a unit across the “yard” from ours that has a tiny patio surrounded by a low fence.

Sarah likes to sit outside to talk on the phone, probably because she doesn’t want anyone to overhear her talk shit about people behind their backs.* She tends to open the gate to our neighbor’s patio and stretch out on one of the chairs while on the phone.

One day, our neighbor caught Sarah on her patio chair.

“The girl in the back is such a bitch!” Sarah complained to me later.

“Why, what happened?”

“She came home and saw me on the phone on her porch, and she told me to get off! She was like, ‘I am a really private person, and I don’t want you sitting on my patio anymore’ or something.”

“I’m sure she didn’t say it like that,” I said lightly. “The patio is so small that the chairs are right next to her front windows, so I could see why she doesn’t want strangers sitting there….”

“Whatever. I was on the phone with Sara, who heard the whole thing, and she thinks that girl is a total bitch too.”

“Okay.” Sometimes you just have to acknowledge Sarah’s ranting and let it go.

Later, Sara (who is in D.C. for the summer) and I were catching up on the phone when she told me that she heard what had happened with Sarah and the neighbor girl.

“Oh, I only heard Sarah’s side, so I don’t really know the details.”

“Well, Sarah shouldn’t have been opening the closed gate to sit on her patio anyway!” Sara scoffed.

Huh. I had no idea that Sara was such an expert on respecting others’ privacy/property.

* I’d give her the benefit of the doubt and suggest she likes to be outside, but she hates nature so it’s unlikely. Her second major is Conservation, and she’s in that awareness group for the environment, and yet Sarah refuses to do anything requiring extensive time outside.