My roommate recently left an acting program to come live with me. Apparently I was ill informed on what this sort of exalted position entailed. His life, is a non stop, ongoing self-victimizing monologue.
1. When he is working on his math homework, all I have to do is ask him one simple question such as “Hey man are we out of milk?” or “When does the next bus to the shopping center come?” to get him going on a personal tirade against his homework. He merely needs the sound of another person’s voice to trigger his own. He will begin to read his math problems like Mark Antony into a crowd of Plebians, booming his voice with phrases like “Ah yes! If we take the integral of G of X, we’ll be able to find displacement from the position function. Of course! I couldn’t see that before, it makes so much sense now. Yes, yes. Good.” Then he will pause, leave his desk, come into the living room where I am working, and begin stretching on the carpet in front of me in the strangest ways, revealing his white hanes briefs. This sparks a soliloquy about what he believes the nature of Mathematics to be, name dropping philosophers and all, as if he is the epitome of all that is knowledge, and it
is up to him to solve the universe.
2. He is too meek to tell me anything. When dishes begin to pile up in the sink, he will go over, wash two dishes, then leave the rest of the pile. Then, for the next few days, he will add to the pile of dishes, walk by, and sigh at it over and over again. Then occasionally, he will make eye contact with me while he takes a loud slurping sip from a dirty glass, then look at the dishes, then sigh again. When he really sacks up to the challenge, he manages to squeeze out the words “Hey man, if you’re going to be up until 2 A.M. it would be cool if you could do some dishes,” with a SNAP and POINT motion with both of his hands and a cheeky half smile. I say sure thing. Then of course, just to be an asshole (it’s tempting sometimes, with a roommate like this), I will do SOME of the dishes, just like he asked. For weeks this pattern went on, until one day I came home and the word DISHES!!! was written on our fridge. So, I did the dishes, erased what he wrote, and then wrote “
Ever since, whenever he does the dishes, he walks around with a smug sense of entitlement, as if he is the king of the apartment, LOOK AT ME, I’M PRODUCTIVE AND PROACTIVE!! However, he has never once cleaned the bathroom. In his mind, taking care of a large pile of dishes excludes him from doing any real dirty work around the apartment.
3. He never learned to chew with his mouth closed. Breakfast, lunch and dinner its nothing but tongue smacking with the lips forming the shape of an O. This creates a sound not unlike two mating seals, especially with the addition of a long exasperated sigh to cap off each time he swallows or takes a sip of any beverage.
4. He never parties, ever. Whenever I go out with my friends, he manages to slip out phrases like “have fun killing your brain cells,” or “have fun with those degenerates.” He gets scared of me when I come home drunk, even though I don’t say a word to him. He will lock himself in the bedroom or leave and go to his girlfriends dorm. It takes him one beer to start acting shitfaced, and he constantly calls the police on all of our neighbors whenever they are partying past 11. He willfully gives them our address, just to make sure the neighbors know that it is us ratting them out. He thinks he is making some kind of point by doing this.
5. Whenever he finds out one of my interests, regardless of whether or not it is real, he goes to great lengths to make them his own, just so we can have a cute little super special bond in his eyes. The first week we lived here, I was flipping through channels and landed on an old episode of Family Guy. As usual, he laid down on the floor in front of the TV, obstructing my view, and laughed exaggeratedly at every single outlet. Having grown tired of the show over the years, I didn’t chuckle once. “Man, you used to quote this all the time in 7th grade,” he’d say “now I see why you were so fucked up hahahaha.” Yes, in 7th grade… we’re 18 now. So, in order to get in touch with our past, he’s spent the last few months watching EVERY SINGLE EPISODE of the show from beginning to end, just to make sure he can drop obscure references to it in conversation (the same way I did when I was 12), which I respond to with a tiny, fake chuckle, which is all the satisfaction he needs. Whene
ver his girlfriend is over he will drop these references, even if I’m in the other room, raising his voice just so I can hear. She will respond with “what are you talking about?” to which he will respond “Don’t worry about it, Family Guy moment!” then loud enough for me to hear “Right Kevin?” This is just one example. Whenever I mention that any movie, activity, book, store, type of clothing etc. in any sort of positive manor, he will go and immediately watch/buy/read whatever I was talking about(even in passing), and integrate it into his conversational repertoire.
6. For the most part, all of these things would fly by as minor annoyances if it weren’t for his unbridled arrogance. He talks down about all ways of life separate from his own. He assumes that our neighbors, who happen to party frequently, are brainless degenerates incapable of expressing anything than other than anger incited by rap and hard alcohol. I have ADD so when I am working, I like to move from place to place in order to stay focused on an assignment. He still manages to laugh at this constantly, “AHAHA One second you’re at the desk, the next your on the couch!!” So funny! He goes on rants about how uneducated people (such as both of my parents) are ruining the economy and don’t deserve to be in this country. He laughs at everyone else that goes to the city college alone with us, as if they are all retards who couldn’t get into real colleges, as if economic disadvantage didn’t exist. Shit, I could probably let this go too if he just knew how to control the volume of
his voice, especially when criticizing others in public.
