jaytan

A long-building, difficult conversation with the roommate goes smoother than expected and gets me thinking about the maturity process that we all go through and our own hypocrisy. . .

My roommate of 5 months is also a great friend of mine. My big brother, if I ever had one. But he's more complacent with his lot, less able to adjust his habits or thinking, far more set in his ways, as he's always been able to get away with murder. At the job, with his girlfriends, with his mother, etc. Shit, the guy was a pro wrestler, so he knows how to work you.

When we moved in together, I was hesitant and always suspicious of him. He'd never do me wrong, and has had my back in dire situations with nary a hint of hesitation, but that's not to say that he wouldn't manipulate a situation to his benefit. We moved where he wanted to. We moved to the apartment he liked, not the one I liked. And the living conditions I've had to put up with have been based on his sloblike habits, not my clean, organized ones.

I've grown resentful throughout the months, and given the other challenges I've had to face of late, finding a job, questioning my direction in life, feeling like I'd failed my own standards, I just didn't have the energy to engage in a roommate battle, much less with someone whom, while being enraged at over small but significant things, I hold in the highest regard when it comes to the large, most important things in life. Like how he's stepped up to the plate and became the Man of the House for his mother and sister when they needed him to. He was the leader and rock to his family as I feel I should be by now, but am not. As such, he's had a long stay of execution from my roommate beefs.

But things came to ahead tonight, and we had The Talk. By that I mean simply that tonight was The Right Time to have The Talk, and as tired as I was from running it through my head all these many months, it was energizing, positive, mutual, and good. I was able to make my points and not feel like I was going to get patronizing runaround. He offered insight into his own situation, and he was able to see that my intent was to be supportive and encouraging, not to put him on the spot. He's going to be clean to the standard that I expect of myself (high, I grant you, but nothing that I don't strive for myself). He's going to eat healthier, work out, and not simply talk about it. And I think I addressed and calmed any potential insecurities or embarrassments he might have felt, in knowing he needs to make said changes.

In the end, two roommates (and friends) worked their shit out in a smooth, civilized, team-like way. One hundred eighty degrees from my last roommate, which was seven years ago. And this got me thinking about the standards we set for ourselves, and whether we really live up to the standards we know we can achieve. . . .

I do my fair share of lurking on this site, reading other people's journals, curious to know what other people's lives are like, hopeful to find someone whom I feel I might jive with morally or in interests. I try to leave comments when I have something to say, and chances are that if we're friends, there is something in your profile that I believe in and want to affirm. Chances are that you're someone I'd want to get to know in real life.

But there are also so many journals, so many seemingly helpless, lost souls out there, who use this place as an exhaust vent for their frustrations in life, a place to pray to the Internet Gods to make things right. "If I talk about it here, and answer will manifest itself. All I have to do is gripe about it." And granted, many of those people are doing their best to change things, resolve their issues, Get Past It, and move on, but just as many times, I wonder "what are you doing about it?"

Do these people look within themselves to see if the key isn't to change something that they're doing? Is it really so bad for us to consider the other perspective and work to resolve in a means other than insisting "this is what I want to have happen. This is how it should be." I wanted things to be a certain way for all these many months, but I held out for the right time. Granted, partially out of not wanting a roommate explosion, but also because although i would be addressing my problems right away, I didn't have faith that they would be handled to the resolution that I wanted. In other words, do we sometimes prematurely pull the My-Sweet-Sixteen-Party attitude and demand demand demand, just because we want to get the ball rolling? Only to realize (too late) that the balll is rolling in the wrong direction?

Building up to tonight, I always felt like I was pussing out when I didn't confront. I've gone to be furious many a night, and I've wanted to go berzerker so many times, over stupid shit, like finding empty cereal and cookie bags in the cupboard, throwing away weeks-old salad that has started to ferment, stepping on peanuts and potato chips that WHY THE FUCK WERE THEY NOT PICKED UP OFF THE FLOOR WHEN YOU WERE EATING THE FUCKING THINGS?!?! . . .I've always felt that he was getting over on me, and although he wasn't, because I was catching him at his own slobbish horseshit, in a way, he was, because I didn't challenge him on it.

But now, in retrospect, I can look back on how I handled the situation with pride. I bided my time, waited for the right shot, and got exactly what I wanted. And I do believe it to be genuine, for, as I said before, he is that kind of guy. He may slip, he may get lazy from instance to instance, and I realize we all do. But as long as I feel like his intentions are genuine, behind his agreed willingness to stay cleaner from now on, i won't have any need to rage. In the grand scheme of things, I feel like it was this sense of maturity, of having gone through similar shit, that I knew enough to wait for my shot and take it when the time is right, in order to get what I wanted, rather than settle for part of what I wanted sooner.

So what does all this mean? Perhaps you knew much earlier where I was going with this, before even I did (this is all coming off the top of the dome here). Perhaps, when we want things to be a certain way Right Now, we have a better shot at getting what we want by taking our time, even getting our own affairs in order, before taking someone else's head off. Granted, this is not the conventional or popular thinking in a rebellious, instinctual, freestyle (and oftentimes henceforth, self-important) community such as this, but I do wonder that if we worked towards an answer for a little bit longer, rather than going to the Staples Easy Button of self-entitlement, we might get closer to 100% achieving our goals.

I open the mic up to The Floor. . . .