this is a showdown, a throwdown...

...hell no i can't slow down! respect to maestro :o)

ahhh yes, my "talk" with j. first of all, i just want to say thank you to all my friends for your comments and support; if i had no one to rant to i think i would go absolutely mad, so thank you for listening to me again and again and again...

secondly, living with difficult people makes me realise and appreciate how good i had it in third and fourth year in waterpoo with my lovely sue! we got on like a house on fire, and never had any problems. you rock sue! by the way, you won't be sleeping in his room, just his mattress in my room, though when the brown goddess arrives one of you will be sleeping with me while the other sleeps on the mattress. no worries girl, it will work!

so, i'm in the middle of eating dinner when i hear his key turn the lock on the door; he comes in and after exchanging hellos i tell him i received his e-mail today, and when he's ready and settled in, i would like to speak to him about it. see, i can be calm.

when he's ready i pull up the e-mail on my computer and take it line by line. even though i was very angry (obviously), i knew anger wasn't going to work on him, and that we needed to discuss this honestly and openly (helen: i agree with everything you say, and was thinking all that when i was dealing with him). i basically told him/covered the following:

- i did ask, and did not ASSUME to borrow the mattress

- in the e-mail he said he would have been "unimpressed" if i woke him up to ask to borrow the sleeping bag, and yet he was equally (if not more so) unimpressed that i took it without asking. it seems to me that this is a no-win situation, hmmm???

- him having a "rough time of it lately at work" in no way should affect his tone or attitude to me. i don't care if he gets shat on at work by a herd of elephants; when he comes home he is NOT to take it out on me, as i certainly DO NOT deserve it. he can fume in his room and yell at the walls for all i care, just don't direct all that crap onto me, thank you very much. i mean really, cry me a river, j!

- he has more neuroses than my fingers and toes can count, and whether he lives with me or anyone else, he is going to have to learn to adjust and compromise, and know that everyone is different and has different living styles to him. i have so far been extremely accommodating with his neuroses, but he is going to have to cut me some goddamn slack if i happen to leave a pot of water in the sink - it's called I'M HUMAN. figures he would go ape-shit over the one wrong thing i do, when 99% of the time i do it right.

when i'm done my schpiel do you know what he says? he says that for a long time he feels like i've been taking advantage of him, because he bought tupperware for the flat and has not seen me contribute (monetarily) to the flat. WTF? he also goes on to say that if i play host to any of my friends that come over, i have to do so with my own resources (i.e. my own mattress, blanket, bedsheets etc.) - it's not his problem. he says they can sleep on the couch or the floor, so there's no need to ask for his SPARE MATTRESS. can you believe it? for a guy who claims to be so damn generous, he would rather have people sleep on the floor than to let them use a mattress that he NEVER uses, just because it's in HIS room and therefore belongs to HIM (when it actually belongs to the landlord, but whatever)!!! that's real generous...

he then turns it completely around, and says that given enough sufficient notice, he will let me use the mattress. again, WTF? so i say "okay j, my friends are coming to visit in a month's time, can i borrow your mattress?" he says "sure! no problem!" i mean really, this guy is seriously demented.

i basically told him then how sad it is that he is so anal, carrying a mental tally of everything he's bought, brought, belongs to him, etc. for months and months now, letting it build up, being passive-aggressive about everything, only for it to spill out like this. i said next time, have enough balls to say it to my face as soon as it happens. and as for paying for stuff in the flat, i don't feel i should pay for anything if it's not agreed on by all the flatmates in the first place; he bought the tupperware without consulting me, so don't expect me to pay for a third of it. we already had tupperware so i don't think we even needed it. also, don't assume i think like you and know when you expect to get paid and when you don't. ASSUMPTIONS MAKE AN ASS OUT OF YOU.

so, it started out calmly enough. got a little heated but hey, under the circumstances i'm surprised i didn't rip his head off - i did verbally, just not physically. i'm really glad it's all out in the open now; i have no qualms telling him he's an anal-retentive, neurotic drama queen to his face. i'm sure i've left out bits of the exchange, but you get the idea.

as mary j blige says, "NO MORE DRAMA!"

CET