Ah, roommates.

For 8 years I've been more or less "on my own". Not once however, have I had a place all to myself. Even knowing that having roommates is a goddamned nightmare, I've never made the transition to a solitary living arrangement. Now, I have a kid, so I'll never TRULY be alone, but I'm sure most of you out there know where I'm coming from. It's one thing to clean up a mess my 4 y/o daughter makes, and a totally different thing to be cleaning up after an adult male and/or female.

I entered into my current arrangement due to desperation. I was a 24 y/o stuck back at home with my parents, and I was in an all around shitty position. Most of it due to a huge breakup (more on that later), but partially because of an overall lack of drive. So being 24, with a 4 y/o daughter, I jumped at the chance to have "my own" place again.

One of my few remaining best friends from high school had come back into town, and he was in a relatively similar position. He and his girlfriend of 10 years were stuck at his parents house, and were unable to make a move on their own. Collectively, we decided we should pool together our resources and get a place. Now, I know the first rule of roommates (or it should be, if there is such a thing) is to NOT Room with good friends. Living with someone you are friends with complicates things on levels that shouldn't be approached. Regardless of how much time you spend together, you don't know what living with them will be like until you do it. And usually, this turns out horribly. But I did it anyway, and thus begins my nightmare.

Now to start things off, though he's one of my best friends, the two of us are vastly different. First of all, he thinks me to be some sort of genius because I know words like 'myriad' or 'malcontented'. Words that anyone with a high school education should know, yet when I use them, he stares at me blankly like I'm a goddamned alien. Secondly, our thoughts on art and movies differ vastly. For example, he was über excited to go see the new Transformers movie. A movie which I had absolutely no interest in seeing. He paid my way in, and where I saw a movie with a completely vapid story line, and a flat out horrible movie in a myriad(!) of ways . . . He thought it was a fantastic action flick and couldn't fathom why I thought it was a gigantic piece of shit. He also thinks Bungee and Halo 3 are like the best things ever. All of these things and more have caused problems in the roommate situation.

The next biggest problem we've had is the food situation. Now, I'm of the mind that when I buy groceries, I'm buying them for the household, not myself. Their philosophy however, is the opposite. Which would be fine, except they embrace my ideologies and eat all my shit, while holding strong to theirs and making sure I don't eat their stuff. There's something severely wrong with this picture. If you don't want me eating stuff that you buy, that's fine. But you can't turn around and eat my shit and think things are going to be o.k.

I'd also like to point out that having a note board of some kind is a terrible idea. It sounds like a great idea, until it actually gets put to proper use. Notes will always be read with a condescending tone. Whether it's meant as such or not. Something as simple as; 'Hey, could you take out the trash?' Transforms from a simple question, to a statement about how you never take out the trash or some other retarded bullshit. And this happens with everything. When you start getting fed up with your living situation, and your living partners, you start reading into things that may or may not be there. This causes things to escalate out of control, and before you know it, you're hating your one-time best friend.

I've decided that I'm going to try and take something good out of this situation. I'll take it as another learning experience, and get out as soon as I can. Hopefully getting my own place(proper this time) and maybe I'll escape with enough time to salvage something of this friendship when I'm done.