Diplomat in the Middle
We had been happily living with our house mate, a rather conservative Arab guy, for 4 months when we decided to get another housemate in the other spare room. The new one was gay and I talked to them both about acceptance and tolerance, as they were as far from each others views as possible.
The old housemate (who I’ll call “OH”) disliked the new one but put up with him, however the new one promptly fell for OH. Being gay myself I completely understood, but reminded our new housemate about choosing the correct time/place/person, all of which he was failing at. I also speak Arabic and had many chats with OH about not having to like a person in order to accept them. As they both knew I understood their points of view, the house was briefly harmonious.
The new house mate ended up climbing into OH’s bed while he was asleep at night and trying to seduce him. OH was traumatized and got me to install locks on the doors. The new housemate then began prostituting himself, using my house as the brothel. When we kicked him out, he then tried to sue us for not giving him two months notice. After he left, the house atmosphere was weird. There are some experiences a house mate relationship can’t recover from, so OH left us soon after.
Why the hell would you just have this guy move in without making sure he got along with everyone already living in the house? It sounds like he was a little nuts, which maybe you couldn’t have predicted, but this still could have been avoided.
He said he talked to both room mates about ‘acceptance and tolerance’ in advance, doesn’t seem to me that the OP was particularly lax. One can’t predict how things will turn out when interviewing room mates– if they could, this site wouldn’t exist.
Giving people a lecture on being “accepting and tolerant” doesn’t mean that they’ll like each other or get along. It’s stupid to have someone move in without the approval of other roommates. No, you can’t predict everything that might happen, but this is still pretty iffy.
NEJoy, the OP “talked to them both about acceptance and tolerance” and while OH disliked the individual, he accepted him moving into the house. Why OH disliked the offender is beyond us, but you don’t have to like someone to get along with them. It happens at work every day with the snarky brat that has to question everything you eat or the office pervert that has insanely lame jokes. You don’t have to like an individual to get along in business. And roommates are serious business.
That’s why we have this site
@NEJoy”Why the hell would you just have this guy move in without making sure he got along with everyone already living in the house?” –
Well, there would be no “Myveryworstroommate.com” if that happened!
@tronner – very true.
@meshell – living situations are totally different from the workplace. I’ve worked with plenty of people I don’t like. I’ve always made sure my roommates are people I *both* like and can get along with, even if we’re not close friends.
given that: i am incredibly fond of arabs and the gays, i am bisexual, i love arab men, and i have done sex work, this story is just tragic.
Can I just say that “OH” is one of the dumbest substitute names for a person I’ve ever seen. You can choose any name you want, and you stick a couple of letters together that very well could be someone’s initials, and that’s it? Dumb.
Eddy: “OH” stands for … Old Housemate. Like he said.