Roommates: Part 2

 Julie 

I left for college earlier in the summer than most students.  I moved into a temporary dorm room all by myself on the eighth floor of an 11-story building occupied by only myself, two RA's and, for a week, hundreds of Japanese middle-schoolers who laughed and pointed at me in the elevators.  I like to think that they were saying nice things like "Oh my!  What a delightful necklace she has!"  Or "That girl looks like she would make a good fire-fighter, if that is the career path she were to choose for herself!"  But I'm pretty sure they were actually saying "Hey look!  There's that girl who walks to the showers in only a towel and then locks herself out of her room and has to go wander the halls for help while still wearing only a towel!  She must have no dignity!"

By the time I carted all of my worldly possessions across campus to move into a permanent dorm room with an actual roommate, I was socially starved and almost excited to begin the adventure of living with a stranger in a 12 X 14-foot space.

I was scared to death of Julie from Day One.

I have never been very comfortable relating to other girls.  It's kind of like if I was raised by wolves and then re-introduced to society and I kind of made a successful transition because I didn't die or maul anyone, but I definitely missed out on the development of some pretty crucial social skills, like gossiping and being damningly judgmental about nearly everything.  Being around most other girls makes me feel like I'm a cave man who has come back to modern times and now must try to learn how to pee into a toilet and fit in with all the cool kids at school.  Like Encino Man.   Relating to other girls makes me feel like I am Encino Man.

It didn't help that Julie is the kind of person who organizes her books in descending order of height and her wardrobe by color.  When she opened her closet, there was a perfectly color-coded rainbow of designer clothing sitting there staring at me - mocking my terrible ineptitude: "Go home, Encino Man... you'll never fit in here.  Did you buy that shirt at JCPenny? Who cuts your hair?  Wolverine from X-men?  He really fucked up your bangs..."

Julie vacuumed our dorm room probably three times a week.

I have trouble keeping a room clean for any length of time over five minutes even when I am desperately trying to be tidy because I'm terrified of the consequences of untidiness.  I almost always find something destructive and messy to do, which, come to think of it, is also reminiscent of Encino Man.  Or an untrained puppy.  At any rate, Julie didn't care much for my adorable antics.

But that wasn't what made Julie hate me.  What made Julie hate me was a box of Wheat Thins.

Against my better judgment, I agreed to share food with Julie.   I had originally wanted to maintain completely separate food budgets because I eat like a starved horse, but Julie insisted that sharing the responsibility of purchasing food would be the best option.  I put up a good fight, but in the end, I was just too intimidated by Julie to persevere:

Julie:  "So do you want to share food or each of us buy our own food?"

Me:  "I, uh... I want to have us buy our own food because --"

Julie:  "I want to share food."

Me:  "Oh, okay."

Even still, I almost never ate her food.

I tried to be the best roommate ever.  I tried to be fun and up for anything and I even braided Julie's hair and I don't really know how to braid, so Julie was just like "It's alright.  I'll do it myself..." and I watched her do it so I could do it better next time only there never was a next time.  I let Julie dress me up before going out because I didn't want to embarrass her with my caveman-like tendency to wear black and brown together.   I acted all excited when Julie unexpectedly rearranged all of our stuff every few weeks "just for fun."  When Julie couldn't make herself pee in the dorm bathrooms because she was a nervous peer?  I sat in the stall next to her and sang "Tinkle Tinkle Little Star" until she could go.  I drove Julie across three states to see her boyfriend on a three-day weekend.  They ditched me for two days to go have "Catholic sex" (whatever that means) and I had to sit in her kitchen and talk to her extremely awkward parents about "values" and whether or not I wanted to have kids and why Julie hadn't come home yet.  I told them that she probably went to see Mt. Rushmore and that she also probably saw someone famous there and got waylaid because she wanted their autograph.  The point is that I sacrificed for Julie and she dumped me over crackers.

It all started innocently enough...

Even though we had agreed to share food, I still asked permission before I ate anything that Julie bought.  It's just another of my weird character flaws.  I even still ask Boyfriend if I can eat the food he buys and we've been living together for about three years now.  Boyfriend puts up with me a lot better than Julie.  Julie started to get annoyed with me for pestering her for permission all the time.

One day, I asked Julie if I could have a handful of her Wheat Thins.  She said (and I quote) "yeah sure, help yourself.  You really don't have to ask." She was obviously irritated with me for intruding on her thoughts to get permission to eat her crackers.

I was scared of Julie and I was morbidly terrified of angry Julie, so I helped myself as instructed.  I would periodically grab a handful of the Wheat Thins, assuming that Julie was doing the same, too fearful to ask if it was still okay that I ate her crackers.  The Wheat Thins lasted about a week.  I ate the last three Wheat Thins.  It didn't really seem like a big deal because normal people don't usually have psychological meltdowns over crackers.

Things got a little awkward when Julie stopped talking to me.  I could tell there was something wrong because her passive-aggressive rage was palpable.  I am psychologically incapable of withstanding tense silence for any length of time, so I desperately tried to make conversation:

Me:  "Do you know what I like?  Christmas!  I can't wait for Christmas!"

Julie:  "Yup."

Me: "I agree.  Uh... I'm gonna go to Jamba Juice... do you want anything?"

Julie:  "Strawberry."

Me:  "Okay.  I'll be back. "

And then I'd go sit in some bathroom somewhere because it was 11:47 PM and Jamba Juice was closed and I should have thought of that before I asked Julie if she wanted a smoothie, but I didn't and then I would have to think up some story for why I came back without a smoothie, but I would just settle on waiting it out in the bathroom stall and hoping that Julie would fall asleep and forget about the smoothie.

The weeks of monosyllabic conversations wore on and I felt more and more uncomfortable every day.  I tried to talk to Julie about it, like Encino Man would have done because he doesn't understand girls and the fact that they like to pretend nothing is wrong until they are consumed with psychotic rage over a box of crackers.  I asked Julie several times if she was upset and she always said "I'm fine" but in a tone of voice that actually meant "fuck off you cracker-eating whore."

I was too scared of Julie to push the topic any further.

After three or four weeks of being shunned in silence, I finally asked Julie out to coffee to discuss our issues, whatever they may be - at that point I hadn't a clue what I had done wrong, but I was willing to bet that buying Julie a Frapuccino would help.  

Over coffee, Julie informed me that she had arranged to move out at the end of the semester.  I politely inquired about the reasons behind her decision and she made some snide comment about not wanting to live with someone who ate all of her food behind her back.

All of her food?  Behind her back?  I began to think that brooding on the issue for too long  had caused Julie to hyperbolize the situation slightly.

I gently pointed out that I had bought another box of Wheat Thins for her.

Julie said it was too late.  The damage had already been done.

She moved out in the night, leaving me with nothing but a vacuum-mangled bobby pin and a growing sense of self-consciousness around members of my own gender.

Coming Soon:  The roommate who made me feel like I was being molested almost all the time.  By a bum.  In a landfill.