(no subject)

Did two birthdays on the 15th and the 16th — a surprise party for Mr. D thrown by D, and mom's. but that is not why I opened this post!

Why Don't I Like Talking To My New Housemate Mr. Leah?
n investig8tn

• he is exceedingly reasonable but presumes to know things about me (I think this is supposed to be a show of empathy, but just presents to me as him assuming my motives for doing things?)
  
• really, really — again, I think he feels this is empathetic — presses wayyy too hard about my feelings. "are you sure this is ok?" turns into "your face is making all kinds of faces, I just want to be sure." hey dude, we don't know each other like that. this is a false intimacy situation where we are fucking strangers who just use the same bathroom & kitchen &, nominally, other living spaces ("nominally" because they're always crammed with Holli's junk)
  
• explaining very calmly and reasonably why that thing you asserted in normal conversation is all wrong. (ex. when Holli's like "my parents met the same way as my grandparents, they're really not out-of-the-box thinkers" and he's calmly like, "yes, but what about generational factors, cultural pressure blah blah." that... wasn't the point, the point was they're having trouble getting behind Holli being single and 30)
  
  • ... contrarianism is my schtick, but i'm deliberately overblown about it so you know that I'm ridiculous and that I probably know it too; or I'm deadpan and dismissive because I don't want to have this conversation with you, a Random Person. do I reflex shoot people's points down that much? I hope not. I definitely do it.
  
  
• is not intuitive, I think is really the above two complaints. can't read me, please fuck off trying, but I can't tell you that, just quietly feel me out the way I am you
  
• is a nerd-allusion dropper, which I am just so against, have always been so against, basically except for when I was 15 and mentally ill w harry potter. I keep up with the allusions and throw them back to show that I can, or I'm like "sorry, don't know that one, what is it from" when I don't. but also, what's the point? are you trying to prove your cred? test the people you're talking to? do you just enjoy that you know that fact that much that you have to remind people that you do?
  
• this entry was sparked by him today being like "hey I see you consolidated our eggs, and I stopped you earlier from trying to consolidate our peanut butter, I know you've been the only one who cared in living situations about the order of the house before, but please ask before you do stuff like that" which... was totally reasonable, and I am well aware he and I are two controlling people trying to share a pretty small space with two other people who only introduce chaos. just like. everything surrounding that request irked me. every nonverbal cue, every hesitation to speak like he didn't want to set something off or me off or whatever.
  
• he's a health nut, but one of the rigid, judgey kinds:
  
  • protein powder+smoothies every morning, won't eat sugar after a certain time of the day because it won't metabolize, exercises literally every night at the same time. this all isn't inherently bad, it's just so incredibly unlike anyone I've ever been close to. I would never use "self-discipline" to describe this kind of inflexible habitry; I'd go with "has an overly rigid worldview and doesn't tolerate error."
    
  • Leah says things like "yeah, I'd never eat potato chips for dinner because [Mr Leah] would kill me." I'm reasonably confident this was a figure of speech/not partner-violence indicative and so like... ???? never have I ever known a bf/gf pair who were controlling like that??
  
  
• he is so not Champion it's ridiculous. like it's not that he disapproves when I'm ex. like "hahaha, our lease is for shit, our landlady is for shit, lmao don't expect anything from her"; it's that he doesn't understand it as a reaction and continues to say things like "I mean I just feel if we're paying a certain amount for this house we deserve to be able to use all of it." or I'm like "wow that basement is so disgusting I'm in shock" => he actually treats this as if I were in real shock and he needs to handle me that way. no, actually, it is metaphorical shock, but if you asked questions instead of trying to Empathy me you might hear my message of "I've decided that it's shitty and not worth dealing with now." like I really meant it when I said "lol, that's for later."
  ... or ex. "lol, yes it is a lot of mud, I'm all itchy" which just leads to "I'm going to shower" and not his reading of "my day was SO TERRIBLE."
  ... or ex!! me talking shit at about a restaurant's fries and him being like "so you're not coming back here again" and my actual feeling is uh, no, I just talk shit about everything. this is fine, where "fine" = "everything in the world is kind of crappy."
  
  
• alright, here's some armchair shit: I know he's from a family whose parents were divorced and he grew up with one of them basically very poor. from this known fact and above behavior, I'll go ahead and posit that he had to be extremely sensitive to one/both parents' emotions and be explicit about them, and that he had to be calm in handling what was maybe some negativity. probably one of them was hyperbolic. possibly Mr Leah took care of himself a lot, like if he didn't keep track of food/whatever shit kind of fell apart in scary ways. /armchair psych

as I write this: what is wrong with ALL of the people in the house, yakking in the kitchen self-disclosing like motherfuckers. wow, do you know how long I have to know you before you know details about the complexly tense relationship between me my dad?


I'm contracted to live in this house for a year, through next June. I better have another real thing lined up by around February. I am at the end of "friends I want to live with in this area"; I didn't really want to live with Holli, but it was better than living at my parents house and (I guess, maybe) living alone.

but no, this household does not go in for household economies. this is the first house I've had where people don't collectively buy groceries or do each other little favors, pick things up on errands, loan $10 back and forth; or eat meals together at all, wow. to me this goes against the purpose of living with other humans. my rent is probably only slightly lower than it would be if a I took a comparable shitty studio/1br apartment nearby.

I share a house with two hoarders and a guy who doesn't accept that life is kind of messy and isn't able to laugh at it when it is. I don't think the nominal +social I get from bumping into them in the kitchen is actually enough to make this better than living alone.