Yesterday was a lengthy post on a real-life situation. Although I made light of it, in reality....the situation stresses me out. I was talking to a friend of mine about it and he suggested that I need to lay the smackdown on Diane--- either tell her about herself or pay full rent and leave her to deal with her snow, garbage, dishes and anything else that comes along. He believes that unless I do this, things will continue to get worse, to the point where I will end up cleaning her bathroom on the weekends or something.
I tried to explain to him that it's not that simple. No, I don't plan to clean her bathroom, but at the same time, I'm not in a position to pack up and move right now. If I decide to "lay the smackdown", she can always pull the trump card and say "fine. Get out." And then where will I be? Less than a month away from my exam, not enough money saved up to get an apartment, and either moving back home and doing the 3-hour commute each way or staying in a nearby hotel. Actually, the hotel's not such a bad idea, but it would still be an unnecessary expense. The more I spend now is the less I'll have to put towards an apartment next month.
There's a chance that I can give her a piece of my mind and she will just recoil and leave me alone, but knowing that she's extremely impatient and prone to just flip out (case in point: she had problems with her printer, so she just unplugged everything, removed the ink tanks and threw them away--- when the ink tanks weren't even the problem) I'd rather not take the chance. Although it was her idea and she is being rather miserable, she's still doing ME a favor by letting me stay. She doesn't owe me anything. And if I started making noise, I really think she would just say "get out." It's not like she's in a desperate situation and needs the money I'm giving her; it's just pocket change for her.
I firmly believe that respect should be a 2-way street, but at the same time "know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em" wasn't just a good hook for a song. Those are words to live by. So as annoyed as I am with her and her whole 'tude, I only have a few more weeks to go. She's going away for a week in the beginning of February and on February 16, I go back to NYC to study until after my test on February 23.
I'll be back on February 24 and I plan to make phone calls about apartments THAT DAY. Wild horses couldn't stop me.
Lifestyles of the poor and nameless
Sunday, January 30, 2005 at 1:13 PM
Post-show comments
Dee's two cents:
somehow approaching her calmly and talking nicely about your situation did not seem to come up in your post at all. Is that completely out of the question?
The passive agressive approach didn't seem to come up either. How about just not washing the dishes or emptying the garbage. She didn't seem to have a problem with you emptying or not emptying the garbage--her complaint was that you used a plastic bag.
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Queen Bee's two cents:
You're right...and why is that? Because she's one of those people who absolutely MUST complain about something.
There was once an incident where she was going to pick me up from the train station. I thought I'd make it easy and stand in a spot where she could see me, instead of waiting across the street. When she found me, she was upset that I wasn't across the street. So the next time she had to get me, I waited across the street (as she requested) and she was still upset because I was standing at the curb-side instead of on the stairs (even though I'd still have to descend the stairs to get to the car).
As far as talking things over quietly and rationally....I've learned that you can't rationalize with the irrational. A SIMPLE exercise such as helping her save a file to a disk had to yield the 'tude and elevated voice; all because the disk was unformatted and I tried to explain that before we could save anything, we had to format it. Geez. Yes, I kept my cool, but in the end I feel that the best approach is "duck and cover".
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