I have a roommate. Her name is Prudence. You wouldn't know it from looking at my apartment, especially when her door is closed. Pretty much everything in the living room belongs to me, and the kitchen only has a few, very unhealthy food items belonging to my roommate and her boyfriend. When her door is open, all you see is an unmade bed, which looks exactly as it did three days ago... because she hasn't been home in three days.
What one would gather from this evidence is that my roommate barely makes her presence in our apartment. True, to an extent. The "extent" is her excessive amount of time spent with her boyfriend, only in her room. Part of me wonders if I ever gave off a vibe of unfriendliness at move-in. Or that everything I say is just insanely boring to her. If my single life is so far removed from her co-dependent relationship with her boyfriend that she cannot relate to me anymore.
The truth is, I have no idea what is wrong with our relationship.
The angry side of my psyche says she is obsessed with her boyfriend, he is obsessed with her, and they cannot divert into two separate lives anymore. Angry me also believes this means my roommate's and my friendship is dead. Cold. Done. Dead. No pulse. We barely talk anymore, besides "Hey" and the occasional update of week's events. I got a job Tuesday of last week and she didn't find out until... Friday. Because she wasn't home.
In my quest to be a reasonable, rationally-minded person, I have set up a list of what is her fault and what is my fault. And what's no one's fault.
Her fault: being gone constantly, or having her boyfriend over constantly - going into her room with her boyfriend and shutting the door, regardless of what they're doing, is an obvious "don't come in, don't talk to us" message. She is also putting me in a humiliating situation by never being without her boyfriend - if I want to hang out with her, I'll either have to agree to do what her boyfriend recommends we do, or ask her boyfriend to leave. Which would then make my roommate super angry with me.
My fault: not saying anything sooner. We are way past, "heyyyy why don't we just hang out this weekend?" I didn't know what to say then, and now I really don't know what to say. I should have nipped the constant boyfriend attachment thing in the bud while it was still harmless to me and I didn't have such a mental block.
No one's fault: That she might be the type of girl who always needs a boyfriend. I have another friend who seems to be that way; she truly handles it well and I still have confidence in her as my friend. My roommate may not know how to detach, or may not be capable of it. Also, her boyfriend's expectations are not my problem. If he wants her to cook for him for every meal, I suppose she will and I don't have a place saying anything (even though I think it's horribly medieval and makes her look like his slave/servant/bitch rather than
his life partner.)
Since high school, I have not lost many close female friends. One lives in Chicago, and we have a great relationship though she's so far away and on a totally different school schedule. Another goes to a rival school in Texas, but we communicate quite a bit and have never made the other feel ignored or humiliated. I lost one close female friend, but I owe that to her thinking (and outwardly saying) that her high school group of friends was not intelligent enough for her... I'll let that remain in an "agree to disagree" state, while I chew on my own desperately stupid thoughts.
I haven't felt so hurt in a long time. Mainly, because I thought growing up meant becoming one's own person and growing and finding one's path... but that was my upbringing and my definition of growing up. I suppose Prudence was brought up (and stereotypically, awfully, I hate saying this) in a traditional Hispanic household where being married, securing one's future, and raising a family are the zeniths of a woman's life. What if she feels she's achieving her greatest goal right now? What the hell do I say?
"I'm glad you and Randolph are so happy together, don't spend the night apart, and seem to be attached at the hip. BUT I THINK IT'S GOD AWFUL AT AGE 20.WHAT IF HE LEAVES YOU!?!"
Here I am, that person who will choose the silent treatment over honesty in cases where it's going to become word vomit and get altogether overly honest. Silently, I'm hoping she has doubts too. Silence is just making this gap between us bigger and bigger and bigger. Silence made her tell me a few weeks ago that she "prefer(s) that our (her and her boyfriend's) fruit be kept separate from yours." Who lives with ONE other person and won't share fruit? COME ON. (Consequently I've been eating bananas at every meal because she won't eat my nasty single-person bananas and they'll go bad otherwise.) Silence is reminding me that we haven't felt truly connected since her relationship became so serious with Randolph.
Silence reminds me that on most days, I have nothing good to say.
"If you can't say something nice, then don't say anything at all."
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