I'm totally excited to go see Master Class tonight, a play about opera goddess/diva Maria Callas in the decline of her career, courtesy of a coworker who didn't want his ticket. Hooray free theatre. Brava to research!!
Now that exuberance is out of the way, the rest of today's post is in commiseration of any New Yorker, really any resident in any city who has had to deal with unexpected roommate behaviors. Be warned, oh ye of fragile constitution.... this is NOT a pretty tale.
My roommate of about six or seven months recently asked if her boyfriend could stay with us for a few days while he searched for a new apartment. I thought it a bit odd (because she had only been dating him for about a month), but I was inclined to be empathetic. He had been unceremoniously kicked out of his apartment, and it can be genuinely difficult to figure out housing in New York.
Wellll that was about three months ago. I recently asked him to pay $300 toward our rent, given that he hadn't paid anything since moving in. He wasn't even splitting my roommate's rent with her, due to an arrangement between the two of them that he would buy her a ticket to Hawaii.
That's great for her, but that doesn't address the reality that the two of them are paying $800 for a bigger room, a bigger closet, a functioning air conditioning, and a wall. My original agreement with the roommate was that $800 would be fine for her, because she was a poor dancer, and that my co-signer S on the lease would pay the $300 difference.
Lately, I have been paying $1200 (our total rent is $2000 a month, not including utilities) for my room, which doesn't even have it's own wall, not to mention a closet or a working air conditioning unit. Though S had been paying the difference, I thought it reasonable that the boyfriend addition take on extra responsibility. Especially considering that I am now having to share my kitchen and bathroom with not one but two different people... both of whom are not given to cleanliness, encroaching on messy (I'm being polite by mincing words here, btw).
His response was that he would only pay $300 if he and my current roommate got to split my friend S's furniture when the lease was up. As you might imagine, my initial response was shock and silence at his audacity, and then a rarely decisive for me "Um No. That's not a good idea." I still for the life of me don't grasp how he thought he had any grounds to a) protest being asked to pay a modest sum to me, who had graciously given him a roof over his head and b) to suggest that he deserved my friend's furniture in return for paying more money.
Long story short, he paid me a check for $200 - and I'm still not quite sure why he saw fit to knock $100 off the very reasonable difference I was asking him to contribute for our gorgeous apartment and incredibly convenient location. That will be remedied tonight, to be sure.
One thing about being a dancer in New York is that to carve out the kind of life you want for yourself here, you have to learn your lessons and grow some big brass balls. And quickly. I should have started proceedings to find a new roommate when I came home from a ten day long trip to California to find trash literally piling up in the kitchen and to an apartment that hadn't been cleaned in at least two or three weeks.
After telling this story to a few guy friends, whose opinions I hold in high regard, I realized that it's on me to take initiative and change this absurd situation. I've been nice and understanding enough. Craigslist post is out in the world, I'm setting up interviews for next week, and so help me I will have a new, respectful, clean, and unabsurd roomate come August 1st.
Cross your fingers!
Yours in defiance against absurdity,
A Broadway Baby
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