Roomates.

I'm sure everyone who has ever lived with flatmates understands that there are times in one's life that they have had moments of serious hatred toward their roomates. Well, unfortunately for me, I've been having plenty of those moments lately. Allow me to explain... I live with 6 people in total, myself included. It's me, my best friend, a (former) friend from residence days, and three siblings (one of whom I also know from residence days). When we first moved in here, Heather and I were thrilled! The location is superb, the rent is low, we both have relatively large rooms and the roomate situation seemed to be ok. Oh, how my romance with this house has worn off. At present, my feelings towards this house are indignant at best. I do not mind the physical structure of the house, which is always a good thing. However, I do have issue with pretty much everyone else in the house, less Heather (God, I hope they never find this)...

Former friend, who shall remain nameless, is probably my least favoured person in this house. Once someone I considered a friend, his erratic and selfish behaviour over the past few years has demonstrated that perhaps he lacks the character I once believed he had. Not only does he continue to say negative things to me despite no provokation (this happened again today at lunch as I was speaking to another roomate about his class; he butt in just to put me down twice and then left), he does so even though he knows how it makes me feel. While I am a lively person, I can count the number of times I've freaked out at anyone not related to me on one hand. However, last fall I had had enough of said roomate's offhand putdowns that I actually screamed at him at the top of my lungs in front of all my other roomates, and stormed off. Realizing that he'd acted hurtfully, he apologized later that day and I accepted it, although I told him he can't talk to me like that. However, it seems we are back at square one, and this time, I refuse to let it bother me. Much.

As for the other roomates, my issues are not as personal. The house we live in was actually purchased by the parents of the siblings who live here as an investment opportunity, though their parents live some 5 hours east of Toronto. Anyway, at first I had no issue with living with siblings. But then it became apparent that both my "roomates-siblings" and their parents acted as though this was their house exclusively, and ignoring us other 3 (while I may resent the aforementioned negative roomate and his putdowns, he is still key in balancing out the sibling/non-sibling status of the house). Now, this isn't a race issue folks, but when you wake up to 5 elderly ladies shrieking in Cantonese in your kitchen when you know that very few elderly ladies actually live in the house, you get agitated pretty damn fast. It's not enough that the "siblings-roomates" parents show up for multi-day visits without a heads up to any of us non-related roomates, but their relatives come over and congregate in our kitchen. To make this situation more akward, the relatives stare at me with mixed fascination/confusion at my presence in the house when I try to sneak down the stairs to my bathroom. Imagine how would you feel to wake up one morning and find strangers sitting in your kitchen, staring at you as though you didn't belong there? Probably as similarly annoyed as me.

Well, guess whose parents have just arrived? Surprise, Krista!