gute Laune

Andrea brought out the absolute worst in me. I knew her from my early college days, back in the mid-90s. A decade later, we both found ourselves in transition and decided we would live together. We started off in a cool apartment just north of Hawthorne. The following year, we got a new roommate, an old friend to both of us, who agreed to move in with us if we found a bigger place. We found a big, beautiful house, just three blocks away from our old place, south of Hawthorne. We moved in a month later.

And that is when the trouble began.

Andrea was the most financially successful out of all of us. She worked downtown as a financial advisor and had downtown friends. She was never openly mean to me or my friends, but she wasn’t ever exactly friendly, either. After awkward introductions, and once in private, the first question friends and family would ask was: “Dude, what’s up with Andrea?”  “Oh, she’s just really tired, “ I would say, “She works a lot.” Or, “ she’s has a really sensitive stomach and has digestion issues”.

I can’t remember when the mood of the house changed, but shortly after agreeing to let Andrea’s boyfriend move in with us, our other, smarter roommate decided she was ready to live alone again. The boyfriend was basically harmless. We shared an enthusiasm for local music, but different bands, so it was always really fun to fill in the gaps, talk about shows we had gone to, and occasionally have someone to go to shows with.

Sometime after finding another roommate, Andrea’s boyfriend decided to not pay for internet anymore, since he was able to check his sites at work. Andrea decided the same thing.  She still continued to use the internet though. Our roommate caught her using it once when she stayed home sick so she told him she would happily contribute a few bucks to the next month’s bill. We left the bill and a note in the kitchen (that’s how we communicated near the end— Notes in the kitchen). We got a page full of reasons about how outlandish our request was, and that she had only used it once, and that she deeply regretted letting her poor friend use it once or twice and how cold and scrooge-like we were being. We responded that we thought she had offered, that she didn’t have to pay anything, and geez, lighten up. These constant interactions mainly via little notes were just exhausting. If she was around, my other roommate and I did not want to be in the shared living spaces. Luckily, we both lived upstairs, and would hang out there a lot.

The worst of it all was when we heard through rumors that she was going to Thailand to help the tsunami victims, and that she and her boyfriend wanted out of the living situation because he had gotten a job in her hometown. A few weeks before she left, she confirmed she would leave a month before we were to move out. 

She left, our other roommate found another place right away, and her boyfriend and I would see each other in the place as we were both moving out. With the exception of her clothes, she left the all of the packing and cleaning to her boyfriend. He would come to me and ask about emotional value of kitchen/living room items, and accessories, to which I would usually say I didn’t know. He would then usually throw it out on the curb.

When he emailed me saying he was officially out, there was still so much stuff in the kitchen as well as a lot of wax stains from candles in their bedroom. I went through the stuff he left, kept a few things and donated the rest to Goodwill, and left their room as they left it. I felt I had done my job, and since they had that room and the bathroom to themselves, that was not my responsibility.

The boyfriend emailed me daily about receiving their share of the deposit. He feigned niceties, but always cut straight to the chase. The landlord’s only complaint was the red wax on the carpet in their bedroom, so he said he might dock 50 dollars off for that. I emailed all the housemates this news, and got the angriest email from Andrea from Thailand ever. In a group email, she expressed her anger, her doubt of my abilities to deal with the situation, and her general disappointment of me as a human being.

One of them contacted our landlord and probably bullied him into getting their money back.  As soon as I sent the check, I didn’t hear anything from either of them until she got back from Thailand. She accused me of stealing a bunch of her things and reminded me how deeply disappointed she was how I handled the situation. I emailed her back and said I only kept a few things her boyfriend left behind, none of the items she inquired about. I asked her to just email me personally if she had issues with me (she cc’d her boyfriend and our other roommate on these emails), that she left her boyfriend in charge of her things, so that she should be asking him where all her stuff went, and that, really, a person who wants things done a certain way generally plans ahead and takes the steps to make sure it will happen. I reminded her she left, I handled it all alone, that I stood by my actions, and that was it. Her last email said something about being in Thailand made her realize how greedy and gross Americans are, and that if I ever saw the stuff she accused me of stealing I should let her know, and that she never wanted to talk to me again.

That was 2004, and I never talked with her again. Well, there were two emails, initiated by me. When my cousin who she kind of knew was on his deathbed, I sent out a mass email asking for prayer and financial support. About two years ago, someone tagged us both in an embarrassing photo on Facebook. She posted how embarrassing it was, so I emailed her about how to untag herself.

Since we still have some of the same friends, I hear she is back in Portland, married her boyfriend, they have three kids. He cheated on her; they are trying to work stuff out. Our only contact is virtual—we occasionally get invited to events via Facebook. She only responds once I do. If I mark I’m coming, she marks she can’t. If I mark I’m not coming, she marks she might. Apparently, once at Trader Joe’s, she was in the line behind me. My fiancée tried to slyly let me know, but I was oblivious.  

To this day, the demise of our friendship really puzzles me. Yes, on one level, I am always shocked when someone actively dislikes me and avoids me because, generally, I am pretty benign, even pretty nice. I have my faults, I know I am not the easiest person to live with, and I know it took me a really long time to figure out how to get shit taken care of. 

Andrea makes regular appearances in my dreams, at least twice a year. In the dreams I play victim to the cool, heartless things she tells me. My aunt once asked me what I wanted out of the whole thing, like if she came crawling back, would I even want to be her friend, and really, I don’t think I would.  I tell my friend who is always trying to get her to come to social gatherings that even still, I’m sort of unclear on how I messed up, that I stand by how I acted, that I don’t need a big reconciliation, and that I could see myself being civil to her. That’s the thing that gets me—people ask me my thoughts about whether we would ever reconcile and I am usually OK with it, but I never hear them asking her.

Andrea is the main reason that, aside from my fiancée, I will never have roommates again. I will live in a closet, on a street, in a tent, with my mom, before I ever consider getting into that situation again.