Choices, choices

[brigdh]

Okay, not really. But I'm stuck at the moment, so choose between these two people who want me for their roommate*. Even if I don't agree, hopefully seeing the results will help me make up my mind.

Person A
Hi, I'm a 22 year old studying Classical archaeology. I did my undergraduate work at Brandeis University in Classics and Archaeology. I'm fairly studious, quiet and not the going-out and partying type, but I like to go out on the weekends for dinner, movies, museums, shopping, etc. I'm from Long Island but haven't spent much time in New York and would love someone to explore it with. I'd love to live with someone in classics, history, etc. but am willing to live with and learn from anyone in any field.

I'm looking for a non-smoking roommate who keeps common areas clean. I'm not a total neat freak and my room will probably be less than organized, but I like to keep the kitchen and living areas uncluttered. I'm not crazy about quiet but I need a certain amount in order to get any work done. I'm a bit of a night owl but usually retreat to my room by 10 or 11 and can live with someone on virtually any schedule. I do have a bf (who calls too often) who would probably visit occasionally and stay overnight. I'm not a great cook and usually don't have much time to spend in the kitchen so don't expect any gourmet meals.

My roommates will vouch for me: I'm easy to live with, quiet (not standoffish just shy), and have a sarcastic sense of humor that periodically pops up. I like (not love) TV but will pay and keep it in my room if my roommate doesn't want one.


Person B
female philosophy student: Hi Everyone,

I keep irregular hours, can be something of a night owl. I don't smoke, don't watch a lot of TV (if I do bring the mini tv I have, I'll keep it in my bedroom), would like to explore new york city, especially the art and music scenes (classical, folk, bluegrass, and jazz are on the top of my list). I definitely don't have to have a roommate who will go out with me all the time, but if you want to, I'm open. I'll be studying a lot and possibly somewhat irregularly (i.e, I might spend 3 days locked in my room and then not touch a book for the next 3 days). I'm originally from Nebraska, did my bachelors at the University of Nebraska, not very familiar with the city.

I love animals, am a vegetarian, am politically liberal, and I should warn that I *do* have a bf from another state who will hopefully be visiting me from time to time, although that will probably be pretty irregular. I don't cook a whole lot and when I do, I would prefer to just cook for myself and *not* to share cooking duties or anything like that.

cleanliness.. well, frankly, I can almost guarantee that my own room will be a disaster, but I will be clean and respectful in common areas. I'm NOT a neat freak! But like almost everyone, basic hygiene is a must, and I am absolutely phobic of roaches, so I will do anything to keep those away. I'll try to keep my dishes clean, my hair out of the sink, etc., and I would appreciate a roommate who'll do the same.

Overall, I'm looking for someone who will be laid-back, willing to frankly discuss any conflicts.

Also, I can be very talkative and social, but there are times when I need a lot of privacy.



[Poll #738521]


*Man, this is so much easier when they assign everyone randomly and I don't have to think about it.

Comments

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Person A strikes me as less self-absorbed. There's something about Person B's write-up that strikes me as prone to drama, I can't quite put my finger on what.

While Sanzo is always the answer, I think he'd actually make a rotten roommate. *G*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I always worry about trying to get a read off people from their writing, outside of internet circles; I'm so used to the high standards that constant communication via livejournal, maillists or message boards tends to impart that people who have perfectly normal styles for someone not quite as used to written expression all sound weird to me. I can usually ignore it since if I'm talking to someone like this, it's probably a person I know offline, but in cases like these it throws me off balance.

Heh. He totally would; he'd smoke in the room, and never clean anything.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Well, an advantage in dealing with people not used to communicating via the written form is that, if you are pretty well-versed in said form, you can pick up certain clues about personality fairly easily most of the time. There's always room for error, of course, as people are a science currently beyond our ken, but mostly there are things you can tell.

The only advantages to rooming with Sanzo would be a) he'd be useful if anyone attacked you and b) he'd be awfully pretty asleep. Well, and c) if you're having sex with him, he'd probably be more cooperative about it if you're both already sharing a room.

That said, I'd be calling permanent dibs on Hakkai.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I think I like A better if just for the sake of 'sarcastic humor', while B strikes me as a bit more, mm, not neurotic, but insistent.

True. He could make a very attractive guarddog, if you could keep him around and avoiding annoying him. Though, you know, he'd probably be a better roommate than either Goku or Gojyo. He's quiet, and unlikely to bring trash/food/drunken one night stands into the room.

Still, Hakkai wins.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the humor thing caught my eye too. She was probably doing it by way of fair warning, but that's the sort of thing to attract our crowd. *G*

Yeah, I think he'd definitely trump Goku or Gojyo, but that's not saying much. ;-)

[chiasmus.livejournal.com]

I picked Person A because she had better capitalization than Person B. And she sounds cooler.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

*laughs and laughs* Dude, capitalization issues bug me so much. But I was trying to be fair! Plenty of people I know who are very articulate and intelligent in conversation suddenly forget to capitalize or spell or not use annoying acronyms if you give them email.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

No, but seriously: this isn't a huge amount of information to go on, which makes things difficult. Person A sounds very rational, but depending on your own tastes and interests in housekeeping, that thing about wanting common areas to be "uncluttered" might mask a person who will turn into Godzilla if you leave an unwashed coffee cup on the counter overnight. Also, the combination of "not crazy about quiet" and liking, but not loving, television could imply someone who does that thing where if she's home, the tv is on. But it could be that neither of those things is true, or that neither would bother you if they were.

Person B is doing everything she can to warn you that she needs a lot of emotional space. Which could be great, or could be weird and paranoia-making, depending. If you're not a vegetarian yourself, you might want to know just how creeped out she'll be if you have animal-origin food around, and whether you'd need, like, a whole separate set of pots and pans. Also, you might want to know just how long her boyfriend is likely to stay with you when he visits.

The hard thing here is, she's either been a psycho roommate in the past or she's had a psycho roommate in the past, and there's no way to tell for sure which it is. Psycho roommates have happened to some of the easiest-to-live-with people I know, and I'd hate to ding her for mentioning upfront that she hopes to live with somebody who'll try to work out problems in some grownup kind of way. But I'd also feel irresponsible not to mention it at all. (As if you hadn't noticed it yourself, of course.)

What's that line? Go not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

No, but seriously: this isn't a huge amount of information to go on

Person B also has a photograph up, if that helps. *grins* But I agree with you; I wrote a page and a half on myself, it would be nice to see a little more from these people. Though I suppose that, since they wrote to me from my introduction, they must feel themselves to be at least slightly similar.

Hmmm. I'm very hard to bother over roommate things, in my experience, so TV, boyfriend, emotional distance- no worries. I'd like not to have to worry getting into fights over clutter, because I am lazy, but I've lived with self-described neat freaks before without it turning into a problem. And the vegetarian wouldn't be an issue at all, because though I eat meat occasionally, I won't cook it. I've tried once or twice, but the effect of anything bleeding on me is to lose all appetite for it. I eat meat by preserving the illusion that it's actually flavored soy protein.

Anyway, since you didn't really need to know all of that, I think I like the way A comes off better, but she describes herself as "retreating by 10 or 11", which is so much earlier than me that I wonder if it wouldn't have to become a problem eventually. I'm more accustomed to going to sleep around 2 or 3.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

I read that as she retreats to her room at 10 or 11 but stays up til later - she says she's a "night owl", after all. ^_^

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that was my take, too. Which could be all to the good, giving you several hours a night when you had the place entirely to yourself. Unless, that is, it turned out that she wanted complete quiet from that moment on, and you aren't happy with complete quiet and/or resorting to headphones.

But, dude. I stop a moment to put this all into perspective. Apartment! In the Village!! And it's only for a year, right?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Apartment! In the Village!! And it's only for a year, right?

Hee, yes. I've got to remember the main point here: this whole is very awesome. And really, given my past experiences with roommates, I doubt I'll have a problem with anyone.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I wasn't certain. 10 does seems bizarrely early to use to describe yourself as a night owl, though.

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

Boyfriends in both cases = OMFG DIE

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ha, ha!

Well, I mentioned I was gay in my post, so at least I know they don't have any issues about that.

[solo.livejournal.com]

Person A sounds steadier, more mature.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I see where you're getting that. Person A does seem to be the popular choice.

[kessie.livejournal.com]

Um. To be honest, both A and B are giving off little hints in some sentences that aren't sitting well, but Person A sounds better. B just gave off some bad vibes in her intro, and my gut is telling me A. *g*

Believe it or not, I used to fall asleep at 11 every night during college, and then the minute I came home I used to pull all-nighters. Granted, I had no internet in the room I stayed in, so I imagine I would have stayed up later if I had.

I a last resort neat-freak - I generally let things go to hell when I'm leaving alone until it gets to breaking point, and then I snap and clean everything within a day. Heh. At home though, I'm an utter neat freak because my father and sister are slobs and can't even put away the milk after them. Though, if I was living with people, I generally clean after myself immediately and live a mostly problem-free existence with everyone because it's simply easier.

If it helps? Even in my postgrad, we don't get to choose who we live with. They shove us together to get an "evenly varied household", not who's going to grate less on the other's nerves. :|

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

No one's perfect, I figure, and as long as I can get someone who's not entirely crazy, I'll be happy.

Granted, I had no internet in the room I stayed in, so I imagine I would have stayed up later if I had.

Heh, yeah, I'd probably go to bed much earlier if I didn't have internet. Or I'd stay in the computer labs and just not come home until 2am.

Even in my postgrad, we don't get to choose who we live with.

That's too bad. If Ie don't find a roommate by Thursday, I'd get randomly sorted, so I'm trying to use the chance to find someone who'll work better whatever I might get through luck.

[louiselux.livejournal.com]

Person B sounds like trouble, for some reason. The last sentence hints at potential drama. However, they do sound like they want to go out a lot and be social, so it depends on what you're looking for.

Person A sounds more easy going and less likely to cause drama. Maybe less likely to want to socialise too.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Mmm, yes. I'm gravitating toward A, but I don't think either of them would be terrible to live with.

[childofatlantis.livejournal.com]

Out of interest, what do you mean by "roommate" in this case? You're both sleeping in the same room? Because I have to say I boggle at the idea that anyone thinks it's okay for a boyfriend/girlfriend to stay overnight in a shared room... But I think you strange folks on the other side of the Atlantic say "roommate" when I would say "housemate/flatmate" and mean separate sleeping areas with a common room, right?

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

It's true, we say "roommate" when we really mean "housemate." Or we can: it's a catchall term, ranging from actual single-room sharing to the sharing of entire houses. In this case both potential roommates are talking about keeping tv sets in their own bedrooms if having them in public rooms would annoy the people they're living with, so I think it's safe to conclude that we're looking at a two-bedroom flat in this particular case. Which makes the boyfriend thing tolerable, if not exactly ideal.

I have heard stories of people getting stuck with actual roommates who think it's okay to have their significant other sleep with them in a bedroom they share, and my mind boggles too. The whole thing makes me wonder, not that American society can be so violent, but that we don't have more murders than we do.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah, like Phoebe said, we'll have separate bedrooms, but share a living room and kitchen (and possibly bathroom, I'm too lazy to look up if we have separate ones or not right now). I use 'roommate' as a generic term to designate anyone you're sharing living space with.

anyone thinks it's okay for a boyfriend/girlfriend to stay overnight in a shared room

I have a story about this! One of the people I'm living with now didn't move in until after the first quarter; they had to switch in the middle of the year because their previous roommates were so terrible. And these were true roommates- shared bedroom with three people sleeping in it. I was talking to her about what had happened, why she'd needed to move, and she said that one of her roommates had had her boyfriend sleep over every night for at least the first month, and then frequently afterwards, and she suspects they weren't always merely sleeping. When she complained about it, and asked if he could at least maybe only sleep over once a week, she was told (she's an exchange student from South Korea, by the way), "That's just the way people are in America. You have to get used to it."

To which I had to reply, "Uh, no. No no no. That is definitely not appropriate here, either."

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

I think Person B would just simply wear me out after a month.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

She does sound sort of intense, doesn't she?

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

ENERGY VAMPIRE.

[p-zeitgeist.livejournal.com]

See, this is interesting, and to me at least illustrates the difficulty of this process. This person did sound potentially flakier to me than Person A, but the sense I was getting was less energy vampire, and more, Look, I'd really prefer to live alone, but since I can't what really matters to me is that you understand that if you hang over me in the kitchen wanting to socialize when I just want to eat and think, neither of us will be happy.

And then, for all I know neither may be true at all. She may be a perfectly normal girl, not flaky in any way, who just happens to be speaking Nebraskan. Possibly in a way that's a little more anxious than it otherwise would be because she's spent at least the past four years in a red state, and she's pretty clearly not good red state material.

Damn, now I want to meet both of them. Or at least, some day get a solid report on them. It's like reading part of a story, and having no idea when or if you'll ever learn how it comes out.

[boniblithe.livejournal.com]

I get, "Let me tell you about myself in lots of detail, which I will continue to do almost daily until you wish you'd never met me."

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Huh. It's funny to look at all the different impressions we're getting from her. I read it as someone who has her way of doing things, and that is the way they are Going To Be Done.

Which could be an effect entirely of the whole process of writing up a description of yourself, since she uses the term "laid-back", and that doesn't really fit with my picture at all. Or I suppose she could just say laid-back in the hope of making herself sound nicer. *laughs*

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's a good idea! Plus, it will make me feel less guilty about having to say, "Sorry, I don't like you enough to live with you", hee.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Hee! Dude, that would be a long commute to class.

I know exactly what you mean. But oh! I have to quote you this bit from the person who I really wanted to live with's post: "I may shout and dance around the house in exhilaration when I have an insight. but not naked."

As soon as I read that, I was like, "Oh man, I want to live with her!" But she already had a roommate, unfortunately, though she did email me all on her own saying she wanted to be friends.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

BWAHAHAHHAHAHAHA! *dies* *DIES*

Okay, look. About a year ago, I remembered that I'd never in my whole life smoked a cigarette. So I decided to buy a pack, just 'cause. And then I decided to record my impressions, so back around April of last year, I made a livejournal post on "this is what I think of smoking".

AND EVERYONE THOUGHT I WAS CRAZY AND DIDN'T UNCERSTAND ME, BUT CLEARLY WAYNE AND I ARE LONG-SEPERATED TWINS WHO HAVE NEVER MET. Or something.

What? Nooooo! Riddle is totally my favorite creepy!evil!bad guy ever, and Envy kicks ass.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Person B struck me as more amusing to live with.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I thought they both sounded like good potential roommates, so I was surprised to see A winning the poll so heavily. Good to know I'm not the only one who didn't dislike B, though.