During the last couple of weeks I have completely stopped caring about the looks of my room, the apartment, pretty much everything. After four months with B I have grown more tired of room mates than I ever could have imagined.
Most of my work mates seems to be bewildered by my cautious distance to my roomie, since he is just "such a nice guy". I don't like to back talk people, so I try to explain, in my most diplomatic terms, that he is, in fact, quite a different person to live with than to work with and grab a beer with on Friday afternoon.
At work he is the quiet guy with the puppy eyes. At home he hasn't talked to me in more than a month. At work he is a hard worker, barely even taking time for lunch. At home he stays bed all day every day playing World of Warcraft, only taking breaks to take a smoke or a piss. At work he talks about how he likes to cook properly. At home he grabs a kebab every night at ten, and when he actually cooks he leaves the food on the stove for days at end, continually sneaking portions up to his room. The last record was five days for a cream based stew.
Not to mention his personal hygiene. Last night when my network went down I came up knocking on his door for him to help me - and My. God. I only opened the door and then I almost fainted.
The place absolutely reeked with tobacco, sweat and mildew. It was like entering an old and closed down men's locker room that the local garbage men had been using as a smoke joint for the last thirty years. When he came down to check on my computer I had some serious trouble breathing when he was standing closer than a meter to me, and believe me when I tell you I am not of the sensitive kind. You can definitely tell when he walks into the room.
Looking at that man is like watching fungus grow. And as sad as it sounds, it is most likely true in a very literal sense.
Still, all this would be tolerable if there was even some little trace of integrity in the guy. If there was just one little piece that would stand up and say, "Hey, this is what I think. Take it or leave it."
But there is none.
Even when I confronted him about his asshole behavior last week did he even apologize. Nor did he say anything down the lines of, "I can see your frustration but I don't agree because..."
Talking to that guy is like throwing tennis balls at a huge pile of dough. There is no response at all.
Nothing.
It just gets to me. Sometimes I just want to rip of my shirt, just like the Matador in Ferdinand, and yell at him;
"Whassa matta with you, you crazy bull? Fight! Come on! Anything! Just stab me!"
Then I think of what Ferdinand does after that, and I quickly come to my senses.
I've known people as filthy as you describe. In fact, my brother was one. He seems to have cleaned up a bit recently. When he and I shared a place, however, it was a disaster. I'm certainly no neat-freak, but I have my limits. Eventually the choice was similar to yours - either lose my mind or just stop caring until I got a new place.
Usually the people who can't take a stand on anything aren't smart enough to figure out where they should stand. Chances are that he's tried to have an opinion in the past and had his ass handed to him by someone who halfway knew what she was talking about. There are several reactions one could have to that, two of which follow: do more research and learn about subjects before having opinions, or decide not to have opinions that can be attacked so as to avoid confrontation and exposure of one's own ignorance.
He sounds like he falls into the latter. I can't stand people like that, either. It's like they decide to be inoffensively stupid. Safely ignorant. Mediocre.