After months of vexation, yesterday I finally told my housemate/sister that I am opting out of communal groceries. Aside from economics ( I can't afford to feed three people, even in a rotating schedule), I'm territorial. There. I said it. I want my stuff to stay where I put it, and to be there when I want it. Living with people is difficult. I need personal space, and apparently, I need personal food.
Bevin did not take it well. It doesn't make sense to her that in a communal household things would be separate. I pointed out that in most communal households, that's how it works. People are responsible for their own food. She's a bit handicapped in that she's never lived with strangers outside of a dorm. Somewhere in her codependent little head, she thought that rent covers room, utilities and food. Yeah. No. Room and utilities. Not food.
She seems to be taking it as rejection. Her choice. Can't fix that for her.
She also seems upset about upcoming changes to my schedule. When I'm morning baker, I start work at 4am. I'll be going to bed about the time she and Laura have dinner. When I'm evening dessert chef, I'll be at work when she and Laura have dinner. Which makes doing my own groceries even more sensible. But she hates change, and she's a pack/herd type of creature. I however, am more of a solitary predator type of creature. My needs for interaction are minimal. I like to do my own thing. I feel as though I need an instruction manual for dealing with my emotionally fragile, co-dependent, symbiotic roommates. Their relationship just seems, well, icky. Too close. I just don't want to be involved in it. I don't want communal meals every or even most nights. If I have to label my food to protect it, so be it. They do respect labels, but consider any unlabelled thing to be fair game. I' m over it.
I'm in one of those phases where I'm living here for two reasons, and two reasons only. Money and my dog. She's very happy here. I'd rather not put her back into an apartment. Hopefully this phase will pass quickly. In the meantime, I'll be doing lots of labelling.
5 comments:
In our apartment one year, we actually went so far as drawing lines on the containers so we'd know if food was gone. We got so that we'd share things like flour, butter, and rice...staples that we all needed but not in mass quantities. The rest of it was all separate. You haven't seen a full fridge until you've got four kinds of milk, four kinds of orange juice, and four kinds of every vegetable known to Mankind in the fridge. I think things would have been better had it not been for the massive quantity of fish in the freezer...
Oh I so remember living with people who ate all my food. I just started eating every meal out instead. Not very healthy but turned out to be more cost effective. The worst though was when I worked in an office where people would steal other people's food even when it was marked. Tacky.
yup....you are a solitary predator, and that's okay. i can't wait till you're dessert chef. i will stop by and have a coffee and some tasty vegan dessert that chef didn't realize was vegan when he put it on the menu. oh, he doesn't read this, does he? :D
living with mum is good, but i'm still confused about the food. she buys a lot, but doesn't eat it. i find myself asking her if she wants me to eat fruit she buys because it's starts to look like it needs to be eaten soon or it'll go bad. she told me that she usually ends up throwing most of her fresh produce away. so i feel like i'm saving the food by eating it...weird, huh?
Thanks for the commiseration :) My housemates have left me with almost no room in fridge or freezer. I don't think it's deliberate, but it's vexing.
I am so very territorial about food. That is the biggest deal breaker for me when I'm deciding to live with someone. I won't live with anyone that doesn't understand that right off the bat, not after the time I had to store all my non-perishables (canned goods, soda, etc.) in my room to keep them from getting eaten. Luckily my room had a lot of random storage space so I was able to create a mini-pantry. But it was really pretty irritating. So, I know how you feel.
P.S. You totally got the title of this post from the thing that was always at the end of the Buffy episodes, didn't you? =)
Post a Comment