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#1262: “My housemate keeps exposing herself to me/the world/everyone.”

By
April 1, 2020
advice, boundaries, COMMUNICATION, friends, Friendship, Manners, Reader Questions, Roommates, Social Interactions

Dear Captain Awkward,

My 50+ y/o housemate has a problem, and I don’t know how to help. Sounds stupid but her pants are always falling down. At any given moment inch(es) of her rear crack are exposed. It started years ago, most often when she would bend over, but it has progressively gotten worse–any time she stands up or walks about. I’m not sure of the cause. She does wear a belt. I can only guess that her pants–jeans 90% of the time–and skivvies are the wrong size or cut. She is pretty flat back there. Yet that’s only part of the problem.

The real problem is that she is hypersensitive about it, and any attempt to bring it to her attention, either subtly or more directly, elicits only an angry response as if it’s a disability that she can’t do anything about. She’ll bark “I know!” when either she really didn’t know or doesn’t know the extent of it. At one point, long ago, I even took a few pictures when she wasn’t looking, so she could see what the rest of us have to see, but, of course, she got really angry and missed the point entirely.

I mostly wouldn’t care except it has led to very awkward situations. For instance, she recently had a contractor come in to give an estimate for some floor work. Her pants were halfway off her ass, which the guy noticed when she turned around. I tried to get her attention without calling more attention to it because I knew she’d flip out at me. Later, she said she felt like the contractor was acting funny and had an attitude. I did not say, “Of course he did! Your ass was almost fully exposed the entire time he was here!”

Lest you think it’s some kind of weird quest for attention, I just want to say that it happens all the time, in public, at home, when nobody is around and when everybody is around. At one point a few other friends started calling her Buttcrack Betty to her face, but that fell by the wayside because I think we’ve all concluded that she sort of *can’t* do anything about it? There was a point where I know she became paranoid about it, and was constantly grasping at the waist of her pants or pulling down her shirt, and she probably got tired of enacting that nervous tic all the time, but this still brings me back to why does it happen in the first place?

Aside from social awkwardness, this issue could also be dangerous. I can just see someone getting provoked by it one day. How does one address a situation like this? Seriously, how? I feel compelled to start with something like, “Look don’t take this personally, but I want to bring up a safety issue with you.” Then what? This such a weird problem, I know. Any advice or suggestions?

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#973: Messy housemate blues with a side of bugs.

By
June 5, 2017
boundaries, Friendship, health, Mental Health, Reader Questions, Roommates
371 Comments

Dear Captain Awkward,

So, I live in a small home with my boyfriend and one of our mutual friends. Before we moved in with said friend, we thought she was far cleaner than she actually is, as she often complained about her parents’ cleanliness and messiness when she lived with them.

Turns out, that is not the case.

She doesn’t clean up after herself. Dirty dishes remain in the sink, or in her room, for days, and when she went away for a week on a trip, she dumped all the dirty dishes from her room into the sink before peacing on out, leaving us to deal with it. When she cleans up her cat’s poop on the carpet, she just picks it up and doesn’t spray anything on the carpet itself to actually deal with the bacteria left behind, saying “it’s okay, it was dry!” She leaves splatters all over the stove and counters, grit all over the floors, crumbs all over, and her hair all over the bathroom floor.

And now there are the bugs.

We got fruit flies everywhere one day. Upstairs where our rooms are, swarming in the bathroom, and downstairs in the kitchen. I cleaned like crazy and set up natural fruit fly traps to deal with the issue, but the flies just weren’t diminishing even after killing literally hundreds.

After dealing with them actually coming into mine and my boyfriend’s room, I had enough. I did investigating and followed the trail of flies…to my roommate’s room. (She never closes the door.) Her trashcan is overflowing, trash all over the floor, and full of fruit flies, and she has ants all over her bedside table swarming over left behind food. There is food in her bed.

The ants and food are STILL THERE. Days later. She has to have noticed. It’s right by her bed, where she sets everything.

Captain, how do I even broach this conversation? I don’t care what she does in her room, but this is affecting us all, the flies are already everywhere and I don’t want those ants to come our way next. Or for us to get roaches or rats or other pests.

That, and I feel like me and my boyfriend are constantly cleaning. It’s exhausting, since again, her one contribution is to maybe take out the trash every now and then. We do all the bathroom cleaning, mopping, vacuuming, cleaning the kitchen…everything. And most of it is cleaning up her messes, as both of us are kind of neat freaks who clean up after ourselves as we go. Just. What do. I love my friend, but her lack of cleanliness is driving me crazy.

Signed,
I am not your maid.

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#798: Roommate’s procrastination is making it awfully hot/cold in here.

By
November 22, 2015
Roommates, saying no, Uncategorized
84 Comments

 

Captain,

I’m in some troubled and rapidly freezing waters. I live with two roommates and it’s been a peaceful arrangement so far. I lived with one roommate, A, in my last place, and my other roommate, B, is one of my best friends and it’s our first time living together.

We’re responsible for filling an empty fuel tank for the winter, but didn’t realize this until recently.  The financial stress of filling this tank is being felt mostly by B and me (I’m a full-time grad student and part-time server, B needs to save for a car because of Family Stuff), and A is having trouble relating to us since she is relatively sound financially with her off-the-books job and reduced rent (which we agreed to since she had a smaller room).

Because we meet preliminary qualifications, I applied for state heating assistance, but to complete the application I need a social security card from A. Unfortunately, it has somehow been misplaced. A is incredibly lax about trying to remedy problems that might be much higher up on other people’s lists of Stuff To Get Done (ie, paying bills on time, cancelling missing credit cards, replacing a lost driver’s license). I’ve already told her about needing her to apply for a new card, so the ball is entirely in her court.  B is freaking out though, and it feels like there is literally nothing I can do beyond offering to drive A to the office and sit with her while she applies for a new card to ensure it gets done.

Confronting A, or when she gets stressed about out things, also causes her to shut down and lash out and procrastinate even more. B and I are stressed for many reasons, and A also doesn’t seem to understand why we are so pressed financially. Her proposed solution is to ask her boss for the money (and that’s a Hard No from me). B has been venting to me exclusively and it’s harder to handle and try to be the middleperson when I’m also angry and hurt. Long-term solution here is to not live with A again, but for the short-term what can I do to effectively encourage A and express the importance of how much this Needs To Get Done, as well as smooth things over between all three of us?

Sincerely,

It’s getting a little heated, but not the kind of heating we need

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#747: Being the unwilling emotional caryatid in your house

By
September 19, 2015
Feminism, friends, Friendship, Mental Health, Relationships, Roommates, saying no
101 Comments
The Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion, Athens, 421–407 BC

The Caryatid Porch of the Erechtheion, Athens, 421–407 BC Shared by Thermos, used under a Creative Commons License.

Dear Captain Awkward,

I am currently having issues with a roommate, who is also a friend of many years. We had lived together once before for a short period, and while I had noticed his intense reactions to stressful situations then, I was given the impression he had developed strategies to cope with his anxiety since we first lived together. But now he is in a bit of a tailspin, and has been since our third roommate broke up with him and moved out four months ago. He is also incredibly stressed about work, and is worried about getting fired, and comes home every night with a new bout of anxiety to work out. Unfortunately, this takes the form of his unloading all his anger, disappointment and anxiety onto me as a listener. I understand expression of one’s feeling is super important, and his feelings are one hundred percent valid (work does sound awful and getting dumped blows), but I am feeling incapable of knowing how to help, or perhaps more importantly, how to get time to myself in the apartment. I am a teacher and feel “on” most of the day, so I do not know how to listen and get time to myself at the end of the day.

I feel like we have gotten trapped in a ritual where he will come through the door and tell me every terrible thing about his day for forty-five minutes, and I try to listen, but all I seem to be doing is reinforcing a cycle of negative thoughts. My roommate is feeling very unstable with his life right now, and I don’t want to shut him out, but at some point, it’s probably not good to allow him to fixate so much, yeah? At times, I feel like I am his only outlet for his feelings, and that I have let him take advantage of my listening ear. Often, he will seek me out if I am not in common spaces, not to check in on how my day was, but to unload. He did it just now when he ostensibly knocked on my door to ask if I needed anything from the grocery store, and then ranted at me for thirty minutes, despite knowing it was my writing time. I absolutely should have said, “Yes, it is my writing time, you are correct. I don’t need anything, I will talk to you later,” rather than hand-waving my scheduled time away and listening; I give him permission to do this. But what would be a good script to start a larger conversation?

I don’t know how to talk to him about this issue, given his stress level. I don’t want to give him more anxiety, but I feel this routine we’ve gotten into is creating bad habits. For me, I am not asserting my need for my own space and time. For him … well, it’s almost like he’s treating me as a girlfriend, like giving me all his emotional turmoil as if I am required on a partner level to help him carry it, which isn’t helping him move on or cope on his own? Even in one of my own crises (a cancer scare in my family), he spent all day with me, only to unload an intense amount of anxiety on me at the end of the day (which he had set up as a distracting, “let’s do fun things to get your mind off this cancer scenario” sort of day). This summer, I began dating someone, and my roommate started saying kind of mean jokes in my direction while the new boyfriend was around (though his humor runs more sarcastic generally), and I can’t help but wonder if this happened because I let him lean on me too much in the early days of the break-up and now he’s gotten our relationship parameters confused? He’ll invite me to events these days, and I will say no if I don’t feel like it, or that I have to check my schedule, but then he’ll repeat the invite three times after I have responded. I don’t know. It’s just a lot.

How can I be a good friend and understanding roommate while reinforcing boundaries? Do you have scripts for this, Captain?

Sincerely,
Tongue-Tied In A Two-Flat

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#328: When something’s none of your beeswax, make it none of your beeswax!

By
August 13, 2012
Friendship, Overthinking It, Reader Questions, Relationships, Roommates
62 Comments
Joel from Eternal Sunshine with the memory-wiping colander on his head.

“Sal, put this colander on your head.” “Why?” “So you can block out the time we all ‘confronted’ you about who you should date.” “Will that work?” “No. Do it anyway.”

Hello Captain!

I’m just going to get right down to it. 

So I have a close-knit group of friends, including my best friend who we’ll call Annie, and a guy who we’ll call Sal. They’re two of the most important people in my life. Recently, Annie was having issues with her boyfriend who we’ll call Elliot. She wasn’t as comfortable in the relationship as him, she felt pressured to stay with him, etc. During the main part of the drama, she told me that she was having confusing feelings to Sal. And our sort-of-roommate Ellie overheard and said that she was too and so was another friend Betty. 

They all went to confront him, deciding that his rampant flirting was at fault and I joined them because I sort of felt responsible for the confrontation because I had suggested to Annie that she should maybe talk to him and try to figure things out. 

ANYWAY 

He admitted that he liked Annie and Betty but would never do anything to mess with Annie’s relationship and apologized for making things weird and said he’d stop. Betty told him that she appreciated his attention, but she saw him more as a brother and would like to stay friends. We left and that was that. After a little bit, Annie and her boyfriend work on their issues and she finally breaks up with him. She tells me she still has feelings for Sal and might like to see how that would work out after some time. 

Shortly after this, Betty and Sal announce they’re dating. I am confused, but I generally am so I sort of try to ignore it. After a week or so and a lot of discussion, Annie starts dating him too and Sal identifies himself as Poly. 

I’m concerned, but I know it’s not really any of my business so I’m trying to stay out of it and not worry about something I can’t do anything about. 

The problem is Ellie. 

Live from the search terms!

By
June 22, 2012
Uncategorized
28 Comments

Creepily, I can see what Google searches bring people to this blog. Sometimes it’s fun to try to help these searchers out.

“I think I’m very unattracted to my boyfriend, is that a good reason to break up?” 

Yes. One of the best, in fact.

“Do I text the girl that blew me?”

Depends. Do you want to see her again? Do you plan to do something nice for her if you do get together again? If the answer to both those questions is no, then, no. If yes, then text away.

“I want to be a teacher but I have an embarrassing name.”

Really? You’d let that stop you? Kids can be cruel, but if they make fun of your name it’s far more likely that they sense your shame and weirdness about it and are going for a weak spot than anything about the name itself.

Names can be changed, btw. It’s a hassle, but it can be done. Maybe this is the year that you reinvent yourself as NewName NewName Comma Teacher.

“My boyfriend was rude to my parents, what do I do?”

Ask him why he behaved like that. Let him know that it’s not cool and you’d like him to apologize to your parents. Watch carefully for his reaction – if he tries to make it your fault or your parents’ fault instead of owning up to his own behavior, proceed directly to breaking up. If he steps up and owns the behavior, write it off as a mistake for now but be watchful – is he rude to other people? Is he rude to you?

“What if when I left our second date my crush said nothing but ‘text me’?”

You could try texting him or her. Someone who likes you will text back promptly and it will begin a conversation. Someone who isn’t that into you will not respond quickly and it will not feel like a conversation.

“I hate my girlfriend now that she’s moved in.”

Oops. Do you think it’s just the strain of adjusting to having someone around all the time and that it will get better in time? Can you remember why you fell in love with her? Are you being kind to each other?  If you do break up with her now, you’ll feel like less of a jerk if you put a little money aside to help her find a new place.

“My parents hate my boyfriend.”

This is a rough one. Sometimes parents have really good reasons for being concerned about their kids’ dating partners, but sometimes they are interfering and controlling. Have you asked your parents to lay out what they don’t like about him and listened sincerely to their concerns? Are those concerns good ones? What do your friends think of him?

“Girl with ugly teeth gets fucked”

That’s extremely specific, son.

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Question #127: “I had a drunken threesome with my roommates, and now it’s all weird.”

By
October 31, 2011
Personal Safety, Reader Questions, Relationships, Roommates, Sex
22 Comments

Dear Captain Awkward, 

I moved into my university apartment with some people about a month and a half ago. Last night, I went drinking with a couple of the guys, and we got drunk. I ended up in bed with both of them, but I was too dry and they left. Then, because I was still drunk, I went to one of the guys in his room, and he was a gentleman about it and turned me away. Then I went to the kitchen and long story short, I ended up giving the other guy a blowjob. 

Now that I’m actually awake and functioning properly, I don’t know what to think. Mostly, I feel like a slut. I also oscillate between freaking out and feeling weirdly detached from my situation. I feel like I lost respect for myself. I feel like I’m in a bad drama playing out in my head. I can’t believe I actually allowed myself to do that. I can’t believe I threw myself at 2 guys, because what the actual fuck. I also feel like I’m whining, because probably a lot of people feel like that after something like this (so sorry). 

I’m also feeling really awkward, because I don’t know how to face them. I can’t avoid them because we’re sharing the same flat until June next year, and pretending I can’t remember isn’t an option because I clearly wasn’t drunk enough (I also feel like a coward for even considering those 2 options). I just want to face them and see what happens, but I may really just end up making it more awkward because I may freak out and say something really stupid, or obviously try too hard to act like nothing’s happened. 

Basically, I don’t know what to do. 

Sorry for whining at you, 
Feeling Terrible 

Dear Feeling Terrible:

Can you do me a favor and remove “slut” as a mean thing you say about yourself?  In this story, it took three to tango, and every single other person involved in what happened was just as drunk and horny as you and is probably feeling just as awkward the morning after. You’re not a bad person for seeking connection, sexy adventure, acting out a super-secret fantasy of having sex with two men at the same time, orgasms, or whatever else you were looking for that night. It is very possible to bounce back from this, shore up your relationship with your roommates, and figure out how you want to handle sex (and alcohol) in a way that’s healthier and more fulfilling for you going forward.

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Reader question #106: How do I get rid of my terrible roommate without causing mutual-friend drama?

By
September 4, 2011
how to say no, Manners, Reader Questions, Roommates, saying no
29 Comments

Dear Captain Awkward,

My husband and I had our first baby almost three months ago. We rent a house and sublet one of our bedrooms to a thirty-something woman who is causing me a lot of aggravation. While I would gladly DTMFA, she is friends with an awful lot of my gaming friends, and it’s not as if there’s any one problem that I’m having with her. It’s more like a steady patter of tiny incidents that reached my saturation point months in the past.

She moved in a little more than a year ago with many, many plans. As a graduate of a culinary school, she immediately set to playing Warcraft on an Australian server more than ten hours a night. Eight months later, she finally figured out that when I said “I don’t know what that is.” It mostly meant that I wasn’t interested in enthusiastic discussions about DPS. And while I know I should be direct, I also fear that confronting her on what has become increasingly irritating behavior may damage the friendships we both have with the same group of friends, cause her to enter a deep depression, or even cause her to move out.

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Question #82: The violent roommate

By
July 28, 2011
Abuse, How Not To Be, Mental Health, Personal Safety, Reader Questions, Roommates, the gift of fear
33 Comments

Dear Captain Awkward,

 I recently moved in with two of my good friends from college. Two of us are attending the same graduate program in the fall, and the other is graduating next spring. The two guys I moved in with have been living together for the past three years, and since moving in several very awkward situations have developed. 

One of the guys, lets call him Undergrad, has been treating me very differently since I moved in. I think he may be viewing me as an intruder into their relationship. He has been very passive aggressive and obviously trying to assert his authority over me and my other friend (Graduate student). This has escalated rapidly and frictions are developing between graduate student and undergrad student. Undergrad has taken to randomly walking in to Graduate’s room without permission, and refusing to leave. When Graduate asks him to do something he doesn’t wish to do, like leave his room, Undergrad either ignores him or gets angry. Now this is awkward enough, but I’ve been brought in to mediate these disputes. I have talked to undergrad, but he refuses to acknowledge my suggestions or give any confirmation. He won’t even assure Graduate and I that he’ll leave the room when Graduate asks. 

 Then last week things escalated even further. When Graduate yelled at him to leave his room Undergrad responded by attempting to choke him. I was forced to break it up. since then I have seen undergrad shove Graduate student aggressively. I have also talked to Graduate student and he says this has occurred before. Normally I would just kick Undergraduate out of the apartment, but we’re all supposed to be friends. The domestic abusive stuff is difficult to handle because we are all guys and are expected to handle this on our own. I really could use some advice.

 Sincerely,

Abusive Relationship?

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Reader Question #19: How do I get my flatmates to do their fair share of the chores?

By
February 21, 2011
Manners, Roommates
15 Comments

Dear Captain Awkward,

Here’s the short version of my question: How can I get my flatmates to help with the household chores?

Here’s the long version: I live with several other adults. They clean the common areas either not at all or on extremely rare occasion. I have lost every game of “kitchen chicken” (where you wait and wait and wait and see who gives in and does the washing up first) ever.

Part of this is because I was raised by a Joan Crawford-esque mother and grandmother who punished messy children quite severely. Part of this is because my flatmates just do not seem to care about the mess. At all.

Now, despite my upbringing I think I have quite reasonable expectations about cleanliness. For example, the bathroom should be thoroughly cleaned every couple of weeks and/or before/after a party. Dishes should be done within a day or two, especially since we have had a couple small pest incidents (though nothing major). Everyone’s personal bedroom is his or her own business. Yet even with these fairly relaxed standards I am still the one doing 90% of the work.

I have tried having an open and non-hostile conversation with the flatmates about chores (“Hey, we are all adults and everyone needs to do their bit”). I have tried humorous little quips and hints. I do not want to be a nag. I do not want to be a bitch. Basically, I do not want to be my mother. But I do not want to continue being the only one to scrub the loo or empty the dishwasher.

Can you help me, Captain Awkward?

Sincerely,
Tired of the Mess

Dear Tired:

I have a fairly simple and straightforward answer to this question.  In fact, we might set a CaptainAwkward.com record for brevity.

Hire a cleaning person.

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