a tattered, shabby book

I have tried really hard to get over this. The few friends closest to me have heard it over and over, and I start to get frustrated at myself for letting it get to me even now. I really, really wish I could've moved past it by now.

It's been less than year since I felt like I had to move out of a living situation because of a roommate. They probably thought they were in the right, but there were some serious boundary issues to begin with, other red flags I didn't notice, until at last this person was _completely_ convinced that I hated them and interpreted my every action as some kind of threat or spiteful swipe at them.

At the start, I thought we got along great and was happy for a compatible housemate. They were having a rather difficult time in their life so over time there were many instances where I would play a reassuring role, but I didn't think anything of it and figured they'd do the same for me if the tables were turned. But after an extremely busy time at school where I wasn't home often or pretty stressed/keeping to myself when I was, this person came up to me sobbing asking me if I hated them. I was really astonished, apologized and assured them I didn't. That's the first time I remember things starting to feel really weird.

Around this time they also started to do all kinds of odd favors -- washing my car, etc, when I repeatedly insisted that they didn't need to ("oh, I like to do this stuff, it helps me de-stress!"). Then I started to feel an uncomfortable enmity.

I'd lived there longer, so much of the furniture and kitchen furnishings were mine. I didn't mind this at all initially, but there were certain items that I preferred to care for in specific ways (cast irons, etc), and when I brought things up with the roommate ("please don't use soap on the seasoned cast iron") they'd be disparaging, say I was being controlling, or emphasize that they hadn't done anything wrong. When I directly asked them to return my items after using them, they started a completely off-track (and surprising) argument about how they thought I didn't take out the trash enough.

Last summer, I went out of town for vacation for almost a month. They weren't expecting me when I came home (acted like I had been discourteous for not announcing myself sooner, though I'd texted with a couple days notice... and I lived there/paid rent). The kitchen especially was a mess. The fridge was already on the cramped side during the best of times, but it was packed to the gills, leaving no space for my things.

My partner and I spent a couple hours cleaning the entire kitchen and fridge. In particular, we tried to make some room in the fridge so that I could stock up on some groceries after returning from the trip. We pulled out crap that had collected over the semester, through finals season -- things that were rotten beyond recognition, old cheese rinds, jars with like one olive left in them, and, fatally, a package of dough that had been left open in the fridge and looked crusty/dry to my eye. We pulled out all the shelves and drawers and washed everything.

Literally as we were finishing this, the roommate came home with a crap-ton of groceries (like where did they even think they could put it??) -- everything in massive bulk proportions. They sheepishly told me that it was because they weren't expecting me back until the next month. I was annoyed since it didn't make sense (I had already been in for a couple days!) but I said it was fine and left to get my own groceries.

As I'm at the store, the roommate texts me about the missing dough, asking if I'd thrown it out. I told them yes, and then they insisted that it had been opened just two days ago so there was no way it had gone bad. There was no mention of all the cleared out rotting stuff or of the fact that my partner and I had just cleaned the whole fridge. For once I didn't apologize because I was pissed. They never let that dough go. It would forever remain to them a symbol of my alleged secret hatred for them.

I feel like I've written so much already. Long story short, there were minor annoying things (never chipping in for certain household items, stealing my food and especially my beer--and acting like I'd taken something of theirs when we coincidentally got the same brand) that continue to gall me when I remember them because it got so much worse. If I ever asked them to clean up after themselves ("hey, the frozen meat you left on the top shelf is leaking all over everyone's produce") they'd scream at me and then act like nothing was wrong the next day. Like literally scream in my face, knock down my door after midnight when my lights were out to scream at me (I had to go through their room to access laundry; I turned off the fan by habit because I'd thought they'd left for the weekend -- they asked me why I thought they'd "be so irresponsible as to leave the fan on" -- I had thought nothing of it) -- and then, when I'd go out of my way to try to ask them, politely, if we could sit down to talk through things, tell me that "they were too tired to deal with my shit," all the while misusing my things and acting like I was "just being controlling" when I asked them not to.

When we finally did sit down, I was so, soooo glad just for the chance to explain to them that I deal very poorly with anger -- that anger makes me really uncomfortable and that I'd much prefer it if they came to me with their concerns before it bothered them so much that they'd explode. They seemed to take this very well, and I was so stupidly happy thinking that we had, by using our words and grown up conversation skills, overcome a conflict and might go back to being roughly amicable housemates.

Obviously that's not what happened. The next time I asked her to make more room for the rest of us in the fridge (I'd set up half the fridge as her designated space, and they still took over more than half the space -- that fucking fridge was a constant source of conflict for that whole fucking house), they screamed at me (called me a "fucking bitch"), ran off to their room and slammed the door behind them. And then tried to act like nothing was wrong the next day.

It... actually gets worse. She tried to bounce from the house giving the rest of us two week's notice before we'd have to either find a third roommate mid-semester (odds strongly against us) or decide to move out ourselves (I was not ready to cover an extra room out of pocket). I almost couldn't find a place to go... and felt like I was being kicked out of my own home (I'd been there first). One day I got home rather late and realized I'd left my keys inside. We usually didn't deadbolt so I tried getting in using the credit card trick as I had a number of times before when I'd locked myself out. It wasn't working -- because they'd deadbolted. They heard me at the door and opened it.

I muttered, "Oh, you deadbolted." 

......

Of course you feel stressed out now that this person is in your workspace. Do you feel better now? Having written all of that out? What has changed? What does any of it matter anymore?

Do you feel justified? Do you feel satisfied?

For the love of God, at the very least, do yourself this single favor: Don't worry what the people in your program will make of this. You don't need to explain yourself. You need only be professional and courteous to work with. And you don't need to be warm with her so long as you're professional. Let your work speak for itself.