this morning, i went into my flatmate’s room to ask him if he was the one who’d left an empty roll of toilet paper on the holder without swapping it out. he started basically yelling at me, saying i was barging in and attacking him while he was eating lunch, and that he was tired of being accused of everything wrong with the house.
it would be easier to not assume he was the one at fault for everything if he wasn’t so clearly the one at fault for so many little grievances. we had a flat meeting once where we were talking about making sure the toilets were clean and free of skid marks and he said “what’s the big deal about skid marks anyway? they’re just skid marks.” unsurprisingly, skid marks hadn’t been an issue before he moved in.
so he deflected about the toilet paper (an issue i’ve been frustrated with because i keep finding empty rolls on the holder and replacing them myself and not mentioning it out of the goodness of my heart) and i posted a message in the group chat basically asking people to do the considerate thing and replace empty rolls.
and then he and i basically fought in the group chat.
him: this is not a big deal, i don’t care who has done this. it is seriously not worth arguing over.
me: it is because it’s about the principle of shared responsibility. it’s about consideration for others and an agreed standard of living.
him: if you want to risk upsetting people just because of idealised responsibility then you need to prioritise being kind.
me: it’s not unkind to flag when someone is not pulling their weight.
first of all, insane that he thinks doing the decent thing and swapping out toilet paper when you’ve used the last bit of it is an idealized responsibility rather than common sense. the thing about men is that they hate having to rise to any form of higher standard of living if it takes an ounce of energy more than what they’re used to, even if it helps them in the long run.
they’d rather we all lower down and roll in the dirt with them, saying anything else is unncessary and too fussy. who cares if there’s an empty roll of toilet paper in the holder? i’m sure someone somewhere somehow will solve that problem at some point in time in some way that is beyond me.
apparently it’s mean to ask someone to do their share of common, considerate housework.
at one point, our landlord said “may i suggest you move from texting to talking and hopefully resolve issues?”
i said, “i did try to talk to him about it and apparently it was me attacking him.”
and that’s when he responded, saying “some self-awareness is needed here.”
to which i responded, “please tell me how i should’ve handled that better other than knocking first.” (note: his door was open and i did knock, i just didn’t wait for him to say to come in)
and he hasn’t responded to that yet. men are so arrogant, as if i’m the one who needs self-awareness when you don’t understand why your skid marks might make people uncomfortable.
truthfully, i think he’s being defensive and feeling called out because he knows he’s at fault for these little things. the rest of us are relatively tidier and know how to clean up after ourselves. he doesn’t think these ‘small things’ should be issues, but he does not get to decide what is and isn’t annoying and what is and isn’t a shared responsibility rooted in common sense when living with people. you can’t just say “i don’t think that’s a problem” and expect everyone else to deal with the problem.
i don’t blame him though. i think he’s only ever lived in shared houses with other men like him and it’s probably always been a mess. when i lived with sadiq, i was the messy one, and i used to think he was being anal retentive about everything. then i grew up and realized i was just being a bit of a lazy asshole and taking him for granted.
so at the end of the day, i hope this poor man grows up. it’ll be a real wake-up call when he starts living with a partner if he doesn’t.
anyway, we had that fight, then i went to mereme to start reading han kang’s “we do not part” (the owner knows me now and said i should come by for their first evening service next saturday), and then i went to the park to hang out with ian, ben and ben’s brother.
i didn’t realize ben’s dad was a vicar. i somehow hijacked the conversation and we talked about how the modern church has often lost the plot, caring more about doctrine, theology and its own self-righteous holiness over actually being in the world and loving people well, especially the marginalized, vulnerable and poor; how someone will judge you for sleeping in the same bed as your partner outside of marriage and then also completely ignore the homeless person they pass by on their way to the tube.
i also told them about how i no longer believe in hell, and how that’s been so liberating and formative for my faith. i could tell they were really thinking about what i was saying, which i appreciated. i think if you’re going to call yourself a christian, you should take it seriously and really think about these things, see things from new perspectives, and form your own beliefs.
the way i see it, anything that allows your faith to be more expansive, more full of possibility and hope, and more encouraging to be in real, loving relationship with people has to be good.