Pity Parties and Twatwiffles
All right, I have an issue with one of my flatmates. We were friendly before we moved into the same house and we hung out from time to time after I did, but I can barely stand her now.
She breathes new life into the phrase 'misery loves company.' I've never met anyone more hell bent on being unhappy and complaining before. In conversations, nothing is ever right with her life. She's fat, she's ugly and no one likes her, her job sucks and there's nothing to be done about it, that's just the way it is and, Christ, are you gonna hear about it! I mean, everyone likes a good vent about certain things but she is just ALWAYS unhappy and yet refuses to do a thing to change it.
She always expects an invitation every time I walk out of the house. She's usually on the couch in front of the television and every time I head out, she asks where I'm going. I answer, and then there's that obvious, awkward pause where she's waiting for me to tack on an invitation. We do things together sometimes, but that doesn't entitle her to a good-any-time open invitation to wherever I happen to be. There are times I can't invite her and, more and more often, times I don't want to invite her. She wants the invitations so badly but she doesn't do anything with them! She comes and when I introduce her to the friends we're with, she's awkward and rude and unfriendly, despite every effort being made to include her. What words she has to share are negative, self-pitying, and awkward. She's not fun to be around at all, she doesn't make the effort to be.
She's significantly overweight, and every conversation that turns in that direction ends up a lament about my being 'lucky.' It's infuriating: I'm not lucky. I eat decently and I run three miles a day. It takes fucking work to look like I do, most people don't just stumble into their athletic bodies. She doesn't seem to understand the consequences of her habits--she moans about being fat, sitting on the couch with a bowl of ice cream and a bag of doritos, watches me as I head out to the gym and wonders why. I've asked a hundred times if she wants to come with me, she always says no (the one invitation that's always open and she doesn't ever take it). And, seriously, that's all I can do, all I can say. I can't MAKE her exercise, I can't bin all her awful food, I can't stop her from stopping at Burger King on the drive home from work. I can't FIX anything about her life. She resents me, I think, for being happy with who I am and what I look like. She's obviously not, but won't do a thing about it! It isn't even about the weight--one of our other flatmates is about the same size and she's amazing and happy. She loves herself, and I think it all boils down to that. If you're not happy with it, do something about it, don't sit about and complain.
She resents one of our other flatmates for her boyfriend. Again, the misery loves company! She doesn't have a boyfriend, so why should any of us? She was almost giddy when the two of them got in a fight, and got angry when they made up! It was seriously bizarre. This girl came out of her room in tears after arguing with her boyfriend, and somehow she ended up consoling our chronically unhappy flatmate instead of the other way around.
It's like that quite a bit. We are endlessly working to prop up this girl's low self-esteem and never get anything back for it. She doesn't want to hear about our bad days when they come, doesn't want to return any favours. She can't even bring herself to paste on a smile when someone has good news. She wants everything done for her; from finding rides to making conversation, all the effort has to come from everyone but her.
I can't stand to be around her anymore. It's a never-ending pity party and I can't summon up the energy to play along with it. I don't know how to handle it; it's only September and I'm in this house until May. And I love the house and the rest of my flatmates, so it isn't a matter of leaving so much as a way of learning to handle her. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed?
Also: update on the wiffleball boys: (Not quite flatmates, but I mentioned this in a previous post and the inevitable ended up happening sooner rather than later)
The twat wiffleball boys have done what we all knew they would end up doing. They damaged one of my flatmates' cars. After being asked on three separate occasions by my flatmates and once by our landlord not to stop, just to redirect their game so the balls would fly into the empty lot next to their house instead of at the back our our house and our cars lined up on the pavement, they damaged her car.
Seriously. A couple weeks ago, I was in my room working on some assignment or other when I hear a loud crash. From outside my window, which faces our tiny carpark behind the house. From upstairs, I hear my flatmate yelling my name.
She flies down the steps and throws her shoes on, running out the door. "I knew it, I knew it!" she's yelling. I put on my shoes and follow her.
One of the cars has a sideview mirror dangling by the wires, almost completely ripped off. And there's no one in sight. Upstairs flatmate had been up at her desk, which faces the window in the room directly above mine. It was a lovely day out, so she'd opened her window and had been glancing up to watch them play every once in a while. She'd heard the crash, looked up, and there was a guy standing next to the car going 'oh, shit!' and then taking off running. Apparently he'd gone to catch a fly ball and smashed into our flatmate's car and knocked off the window.
They hid in their house. Like we DON'T KNOW who did it? Are you joking? We went over and knocked on the door and they refused to answer! We could hear them laughing at us behind the door. I said (REALLY LOUD) to my flatmate, "Well, isn't that too bad we can't handle this like adults! I suppose the police will need to be called."
They were knocking on our door five minutes later, repentant little angels. Really, though, the girl whose car it was was really nice about the whole thing. They stopped playing for a few weeks (bright, aren't they?) but when I walked home from class on Friday, I noticed them playing. I gave them an evil eye. I kind of hope they fuck with my car. Since it's just a loaner from my dad for the year I'm over here, he would flip if something happened to it like that--he loves his cars.
Also, as a matter pertaining to absolutely nothing in this post: Chick-fil-a is the crown jewel of American fast food. I could eat there every day. Can someone see to exporting that? McDonald's and KFC (ick!) and Burger King have NOTHING on this.
She breathes new life into the phrase 'misery loves company.' I've never met anyone more hell bent on being unhappy and complaining before. In conversations, nothing is ever right with her life. She's fat, she's ugly and no one likes her, her job sucks and there's nothing to be done about it, that's just the way it is and, Christ, are you gonna hear about it! I mean, everyone likes a good vent about certain things but she is just ALWAYS unhappy and yet refuses to do a thing to change it.
She always expects an invitation every time I walk out of the house. She's usually on the couch in front of the television and every time I head out, she asks where I'm going. I answer, and then there's that obvious, awkward pause where she's waiting for me to tack on an invitation. We do things together sometimes, but that doesn't entitle her to a good-any-time open invitation to wherever I happen to be. There are times I can't invite her and, more and more often, times I don't want to invite her. She wants the invitations so badly but she doesn't do anything with them! She comes and when I introduce her to the friends we're with, she's awkward and rude and unfriendly, despite every effort being made to include her. What words she has to share are negative, self-pitying, and awkward. She's not fun to be around at all, she doesn't make the effort to be.
She's significantly overweight, and every conversation that turns in that direction ends up a lament about my being 'lucky.' It's infuriating: I'm not lucky. I eat decently and I run three miles a day. It takes fucking work to look like I do, most people don't just stumble into their athletic bodies. She doesn't seem to understand the consequences of her habits--she moans about being fat, sitting on the couch with a bowl of ice cream and a bag of doritos, watches me as I head out to the gym and wonders why. I've asked a hundred times if she wants to come with me, she always says no (the one invitation that's always open and she doesn't ever take it). And, seriously, that's all I can do, all I can say. I can't MAKE her exercise, I can't bin all her awful food, I can't stop her from stopping at Burger King on the drive home from work. I can't FIX anything about her life. She resents me, I think, for being happy with who I am and what I look like. She's obviously not, but won't do a thing about it! It isn't even about the weight--one of our other flatmates is about the same size and she's amazing and happy. She loves herself, and I think it all boils down to that. If you're not happy with it, do something about it, don't sit about and complain.
She resents one of our other flatmates for her boyfriend. Again, the misery loves company! She doesn't have a boyfriend, so why should any of us? She was almost giddy when the two of them got in a fight, and got angry when they made up! It was seriously bizarre. This girl came out of her room in tears after arguing with her boyfriend, and somehow she ended up consoling our chronically unhappy flatmate instead of the other way around.
It's like that quite a bit. We are endlessly working to prop up this girl's low self-esteem and never get anything back for it. She doesn't want to hear about our bad days when they come, doesn't want to return any favours. She can't even bring herself to paste on a smile when someone has good news. She wants everything done for her; from finding rides to making conversation, all the effort has to come from everyone but her.
I can't stand to be around her anymore. It's a never-ending pity party and I can't summon up the energy to play along with it. I don't know how to handle it; it's only September and I'm in this house until May. And I love the house and the rest of my flatmates, so it isn't a matter of leaving so much as a way of learning to handle her. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to proceed?
Also: update on the wiffleball boys: (Not quite flatmates, but I mentioned this in a previous post and the inevitable ended up happening sooner rather than later)
The twat wiffleball boys have done what we all knew they would end up doing. They damaged one of my flatmates' cars. After being asked on three separate occasions by my flatmates and once by our landlord not to stop, just to redirect their game so the balls would fly into the empty lot next to their house instead of at the back our our house and our cars lined up on the pavement, they damaged her car.
Seriously. A couple weeks ago, I was in my room working on some assignment or other when I hear a loud crash. From outside my window, which faces our tiny carpark behind the house. From upstairs, I hear my flatmate yelling my name.
She flies down the steps and throws her shoes on, running out the door. "I knew it, I knew it!" she's yelling. I put on my shoes and follow her.
One of the cars has a sideview mirror dangling by the wires, almost completely ripped off. And there's no one in sight. Upstairs flatmate had been up at her desk, which faces the window in the room directly above mine. It was a lovely day out, so she'd opened her window and had been glancing up to watch them play every once in a while. She'd heard the crash, looked up, and there was a guy standing next to the car going 'oh, shit!' and then taking off running. Apparently he'd gone to catch a fly ball and smashed into our flatmate's car and knocked off the window.
They hid in their house. Like we DON'T KNOW who did it? Are you joking? We went over and knocked on the door and they refused to answer! We could hear them laughing at us behind the door. I said (REALLY LOUD) to my flatmate, "Well, isn't that too bad we can't handle this like adults! I suppose the police will need to be called."
They were knocking on our door five minutes later, repentant little angels. Really, though, the girl whose car it was was really nice about the whole thing. They stopped playing for a few weeks (bright, aren't they?) but when I walked home from class on Friday, I noticed them playing. I gave them an evil eye. I kind of hope they fuck with my car. Since it's just a loaner from my dad for the year I'm over here, he would flip if something happened to it like that--he loves his cars.
Also, as a matter pertaining to absolutely nothing in this post: Chick-fil-a is the crown jewel of American fast food. I could eat there every day. Can someone see to exporting that? McDonald's and KFC (ick!) and Burger King have NOTHING on this.