During my first two years of college
dorm living, I managed to run through five roommates. After number three
and I parted ways, I forced myself to consider the possibility that the
problem might be with me.
I always had my own room growing up, and though I shared a bathroom with my family, we were all pretty likeminded about keeping errant hairs to a minimum and screwing the shampoo lid on tightly.
Dorm living was a different ball of wax. I couldn’t just close the door and be by myself when I wanted to: I had to share my space. I think we all know what a hang up I have when it comes to sharing .
The real problem is that I’m a neat freak who likes to have control over her space. I hated that my side of the room looked, in my opinion, fabulous, but my roommate’s side looked messy and disorganized. Once, after getting angry at roommate number three, I, in a bizarre form of “revenge,” cleaned her side of the room. It felt great and looked fantastic. The whole room had my touch.
It was pretty exhausting stressing about the state of someone else’s stuff, so after my sophomore year, I began requesting single rooms in the dorms. Since then, I’ve lived alone, and I’ve generally had no complaints about it. The bathroom is clean because I cleaned it. The milk is where I put it in the ‘fridge, and it will wait patiently in its place for me.
I’ll admit there have been some lonely weekends when, boyfriendless, I wondered if I could actually sleep the weekend away, but for the most part, I like living alone. And there’s always Gracie, my cockatiel, to keep me from being too solipsistic.
However, since the last time I wrote, my relationship with Peter has progressed. After spending much of the summer together, we decided he should rent the apartment across the hall from mine. I live on the top floor of a house with only one other apartment, so essentially, we’d have the whole floor to ourselves. When we needed alone time, we could just retreat to our separate apartments and close the doors.
Unfortunately, the apartment across the hall would not be available until December. We thought we could just continue to spend loads of time together while keeping separate residences until then, but I decided I enjoyed spending time with him so much that I didn’t want to wait, so I asked Peter to stay at my place until the apartment next door opened up.
Yes, that’s actually control freak me speaking, but notice I didn’t say that I’d move in with him (his place could barely fit Gracie’s toy collection let alone me, my wardrobe, and my extensive pear portrait collection –that’s for another column). At least at my place, my stuff and I could rest easy knowing that there was enough room for all of us.
Peter agreed to move in, but he left his furniture in his apartment. What didn’t occur to me when I extended this invitation was that he would need some place to park his stuff. My closets and drawers were currently occupied by my own wardrobe, so we purchased a few under-the-bed boxes for him to use, and I, somewhat grudgingly, crammed a few sweatshirts from my coat closet into my regular closet to make room for a few of Peter’s hanging clothes.
Since he moved in, I’ve learned from my friends that they don’t share their closet space either. One friend, in fact, uses the closet space in their bedroom for her wardrobe while her husband’s clothes are exiled to the guest bedroom. While I probably will become zen with Peter’s clothes hanging next to mine, there are a few things I’m not willing to compromise on.
For example, the bathtub must be rinsed (that’s why I have a handheld shower) after each use. Clean dishes may NOT be placed on a counter that hasn’t been wiped down. All plastic must be rinsed and deposited in the plastic recycling bag under the sink (I’ve fished from the garbage far too many pop bottles, honey).
I’ve been trying to let a lot of other stuff go, which is really hard for me. Peter likes to make the bed, and though he turns the large pillows so that the open ends face each other rather than away from each other, I’ve let that go. Peter likes to wash the dishes, and even though he doesn’t wipe down the counters before starting the washing, I’ve let that go. Okay, so maybe I’m not letting it go so much as I am not commenting on it while I silently seethe inside.
The big change for me is that I’m letting him help me clean on Saturdays, although the bathroom is still my domain (I must control the hairs and for a mostly bald guy, Peter really has a lot!). I decided that I’d let him dust. In my mind, dusting has to be done, but it’s pretty low stakes. I don’t have many breakables, so I reasoned, why not let him go to town?
Here’s the reason why. Apparently, I suck at dusting. In less than an hour, Peter went through two swiffer dusters (later, I stuffed them, black and twitching, deep into the garbage). After he was finished, he handed me something he’d discovered under the radiator. It was a Christmas ornament. And it wasn’t mine! It must have belonged to the previous tenant who lived here, wait for it, FIVE YEARS AGO.
So how much of a neat freak am I if I hadn’t ever discovered this gem!?! This was the moment when I decided that I had to let it go. Don’t get me wrong: I still carp on clean dishes sitting on a dirty counter top, but the occasional wayward hair and the pillows and the vertical rather than horizontal filing of papers? I’m letting it all go.
In return, I’ve made room for a cuddly bed companion who washes the dishes and saves enough hot water for me to take a bath before I go to bed. Let’s hope he doesn’t run for the hills like my last five roommates. My radiators need to be dusted.
I always had my own room growing up, and though I shared a bathroom with my family, we were all pretty likeminded about keeping errant hairs to a minimum and screwing the shampoo lid on tightly.
Dorm living was a different ball of wax. I couldn’t just close the door and be by myself when I wanted to: I had to share my space. I think we all know what a hang up I have when it comes to sharing .
The real problem is that I’m a neat freak who likes to have control over her space. I hated that my side of the room looked, in my opinion, fabulous, but my roommate’s side looked messy and disorganized. Once, after getting angry at roommate number three, I, in a bizarre form of “revenge,” cleaned her side of the room. It felt great and looked fantastic. The whole room had my touch.
It was pretty exhausting stressing about the state of someone else’s stuff, so after my sophomore year, I began requesting single rooms in the dorms. Since then, I’ve lived alone, and I’ve generally had no complaints about it. The bathroom is clean because I cleaned it. The milk is where I put it in the ‘fridge, and it will wait patiently in its place for me.
I’ll admit there have been some lonely weekends when, boyfriendless, I wondered if I could actually sleep the weekend away, but for the most part, I like living alone. And there’s always Gracie, my cockatiel, to keep me from being too solipsistic.
However, since the last time I wrote, my relationship with Peter has progressed. After spending much of the summer together, we decided he should rent the apartment across the hall from mine. I live on the top floor of a house with only one other apartment, so essentially, we’d have the whole floor to ourselves. When we needed alone time, we could just retreat to our separate apartments and close the doors.
Unfortunately, the apartment across the hall would not be available until December. We thought we could just continue to spend loads of time together while keeping separate residences until then, but I decided I enjoyed spending time with him so much that I didn’t want to wait, so I asked Peter to stay at my place until the apartment next door opened up.
Yes, that’s actually control freak me speaking, but notice I didn’t say that I’d move in with him (his place could barely fit Gracie’s toy collection let alone me, my wardrobe, and my extensive pear portrait collection –that’s for another column). At least at my place, my stuff and I could rest easy knowing that there was enough room for all of us.
Peter agreed to move in, but he left his furniture in his apartment. What didn’t occur to me when I extended this invitation was that he would need some place to park his stuff. My closets and drawers were currently occupied by my own wardrobe, so we purchased a few under-the-bed boxes for him to use, and I, somewhat grudgingly, crammed a few sweatshirts from my coat closet into my regular closet to make room for a few of Peter’s hanging clothes.
Since he moved in, I’ve learned from my friends that they don’t share their closet space either. One friend, in fact, uses the closet space in their bedroom for her wardrobe while her husband’s clothes are exiled to the guest bedroom. While I probably will become zen with Peter’s clothes hanging next to mine, there are a few things I’m not willing to compromise on.
For example, the bathtub must be rinsed (that’s why I have a handheld shower) after each use. Clean dishes may NOT be placed on a counter that hasn’t been wiped down. All plastic must be rinsed and deposited in the plastic recycling bag under the sink (I’ve fished from the garbage far too many pop bottles, honey).
I’ve been trying to let a lot of other stuff go, which is really hard for me. Peter likes to make the bed, and though he turns the large pillows so that the open ends face each other rather than away from each other, I’ve let that go. Peter likes to wash the dishes, and even though he doesn’t wipe down the counters before starting the washing, I’ve let that go. Okay, so maybe I’m not letting it go so much as I am not commenting on it while I silently seethe inside.
The big change for me is that I’m letting him help me clean on Saturdays, although the bathroom is still my domain (I must control the hairs and for a mostly bald guy, Peter really has a lot!). I decided that I’d let him dust. In my mind, dusting has to be done, but it’s pretty low stakes. I don’t have many breakables, so I reasoned, why not let him go to town?
Here’s the reason why. Apparently, I suck at dusting. In less than an hour, Peter went through two swiffer dusters (later, I stuffed them, black and twitching, deep into the garbage). After he was finished, he handed me something he’d discovered under the radiator. It was a Christmas ornament. And it wasn’t mine! It must have belonged to the previous tenant who lived here, wait for it, FIVE YEARS AGO.
So how much of a neat freak am I if I hadn’t ever discovered this gem!?! This was the moment when I decided that I had to let it go. Don’t get me wrong: I still carp on clean dishes sitting on a dirty counter top, but the occasional wayward hair and the pillows and the vertical rather than horizontal filing of papers? I’m letting it all go.
In return, I’ve made room for a cuddly bed companion who washes the dishes and saves enough hot water for me to take a bath before I go to bed. Let’s hope he doesn’t run for the hills like my last five roommates. My radiators need to be dusted.
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