My roommate is a disaster. If I simply described to you his inability to cook or clean or pay bills on time, his habit of sleeping on a mattress on the floor because he forgot to buy a bed (and this is after it took him two months to buy the mattress), the amazingly illiterate facebook status updates, the fact that his parents have to come in from out of state to bring him frozen meals they’ve prepared and take him to the grocery store or else he’d never eat anything at home, you’d think he was a total loser. But that would leave out the important fact that all this apparently contributes to his great success with women. He is always bringing girls home with him, and not only do they sleep with him, repeatedly, they also cook his meals, clean his room, and even occasionally clean our kitchen (thanks, random one-night stand girl!).
How is this possible? Never having been male, I find it difficult to penetrate the male psyche and do not often try. But I have seen women behave this way before. My roommate is not the first male I have encountered whom women apparently see as an epic improvement project--the diamond in the rough who, with a little tender prodding (and sex) from a patient woman, can be weaned away from his pathetic neediness and shaped into a great man. And the woman, in turn, having reclaimed him from the wilds, will have the honor of being his partner. I suppose all women attempt to improve and civilize their men to some degree, which is understandable enough if they're starting from a decent level of pre-existing civilization--like they know to sleep in a bed, but not to make it in the morning, or they know how to cook, but only spaghetti. But these spectacularly doomed efforts at domesticating mountain gorillas are of a different caliber, I think.
Most of my roommate’s hook-ups appear to be of the conventional twenty-something PR or HR assistant variety, but I have talked with a girl who came once to tend him when he was in the hospital (allergic reaction, possibly from drinking too much) who had just graduated from UPenn and started a job as a consultant and told me that, while she liked her job ok at the moment, she had just informed her boss that if it didn’t get exciting soon, she was going to have to leave, because, “People with my kind of education don’t just settle for having a job if it’s not exciting, you know? I’m not like the people at my office from, like, Penn State, who are content with a 9-5 job that pays well and lets them go home every night to spend time with their friends. I need something bigger.” It was really impressive that she had condescended to hook up with my roommate, who (barely) graduated from a university ranked even lower than Penn State, but I haven't seen her around recently, so I guess that didn't work out for long.
I find it mildly annoying that this person (my roommate, not the UPenn snob) will likely be extremely successful in work and life, despite being a callous moron, but all signs do point in that direction. He has a probably impressive job, though I can't really discern what he does because he speaks mostly in catch-phrases. He has a lively social life. Plus, the girls. Recently, while a girl was over cooking dinner for him, they had the following conversation about an issue of the Economist that had arrived for him:
Girl: Oh, do you read the Economist?
Roommate: Um, I’m starting to.
Girl: You should! You’d be so smart!
Roommate: I know; I love the covers they have.
I guess this is what I deserve.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
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17 comments:
And didn't I tell you to get the girl roommate?
i know, i know. you always say this.
I'm guessing most of these women aren't actually viewing him as a project. If that were the case, it wouldn't be a succession of one-night stands. I'm guessing the guy's fairly attractive, yes? And these women are in it for the same reason he is - the sex.
However, you have much to go on. Certainly I was much more attractive to women in my mad, bad, and dangerous to know youth than I am in my domesticated old age.
This is why I virtually did not date until my late 20s. Until that point, even smart and well-intentioned men are effectively feral. And really: who has the time?
Andrew: They're not random girls he meets on the street. They're usually loosely "friends" and they come over a few times before one of them gets tired of the other. If they just wanted the sex, why would they cook and clean for him?
Flavia: A strict training regimen based on appeals to personal dignity and also on threats can sometimes be effective, but civilizing is a slow process.
When I lived in a frat house of sorts on the Hill, I saw the same civilizing behavior repeated throughout most of the one night stands by my seven odd male roommates. Most girls seemed to do it out of disgust, that kind of basic female desire to copulate in a place that does not have beer bottles and peanut shells lying on the floor (“wow, you guys should really get a trashcan…”). Others had a sort of market exchange quality – in light of the man’s good behavior, purchasing of drinks, and not being too raunchy, he got his laundry done the next morning (“Joe Sixpack is really nice, we were going to ride the metro drunk for like an hour to get here, but he paid $40 for a cab…”). Others had a sort of pity complex, as if they felt morally wrong to do nothing (“This place is a disaster. I know Joe Sixpack stays out late a lot, but how can he live like this…”). Finally, there appeared to be the feigning mild interest and attendant domesticity as a mental justification for random sex (“Oh no, I mean, I met Joe Sixpack at the Hawk and Dove last night, but we were thinking of doing some other stuff together too, like going to a Smithsonian or something on Thursday…”).
This behavior by twenty something girls makes sense though, since most of these guys seem pretty decent when they are out working Adams Morgan in their club attire. The quality of their home life only becomes shockingly obvious when you awake at 1 PM on a Sunday, after hormonal release, to find last night’s prophylactic strewn across the floor and intermixed with junk mail, loose socks, and plastic wrap from anything purchased in the last six months.
I was going to write a response very similar to HUM III's, but he said it much better than I would have.
I would have had a long list of potential wives if every woman who ever cooked or cleaned for me also wished to marry me. By the by, I believe "feigning mild interest and attendant domesticity as a mental justification for random sex" is probably the most common motive.
Hum III: I think that might be the most insightful comment you've ever left here.
Andrew: I don't assume every single one wants to marry him. It seems to be more about rescue. I don't know if women do penance for random sex by cleaning houses, but if so, why were you taking advantage of that?
Ah, well, when I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible. I have many, many regrets about my misspent youth and taking advantage of the cooking/cleaning/mending services of young women actually ranks pretty low on my list of regrets (well below taking advantage of their freely given sexual services for one thing), though I do agree with you that it was wrong.
For what it's worth, in those cases when the situation was reversed (we went to her place), at least once I fixed some young woman's VCR and, on a separate occasion, a computer. Personally, I can't say I felt particularly used nor did I view the ladies in question as "projects." ("A few years with me and they'll be able to fix their own electronics.")
This post reminds me of the Sugar Ray song (it took a while to remember the name):
Every Morning there's a halo hanging
from the corner of my girlfriend's four-post bed
I know it's not mine but I'll see if I can use it for
the weekend or a one-night stand
. . .
Perhaps one of the reasons they get "tired of" him (if not him, of them) is precisely that they have to do everything?
I've been told (and it seems both obviously and demonstrably true) that my ability to manage basic housekeeping and reasonably advanced (i.e., tasty and not just spaghetti) cooking is a significant asset.
If only because a potential mate thus knows that she won't be stuck doing it all, herself, forever.
MSI: The movie Someone Like You speaks ever so slightly to this post.
I'll add that this is also the reason I always brought dudes back to my place, back in the day.
On the negative side, being in my own apartment meant I couldn't make a quick escape, should one become necessary. But it was my place, and thus clean and comfortable. . . and I didn't run the risk of being instantly depressed upon seeing where and how the dude in question lived.
Serious mood-killer, that.
How on earth have you been tolerating this for over a year?! I wonder how one delicately kicks out a roommate without resorting to the mess that is landlord-tenant law (if the lease is in your name, you are technically sub-leasing one part to him).
My sympathies though. I grew up with three brothers. Gross. But yes, it's the added insult of his apparent possession of game that is most galling.
My younger brother went through girlfriends at a terrific rate, and they would frequently cook and clean for him, including while he was still living at my parents' house. I once asked him, when I was feeling sorry for myself about not having a girlfriend, where he found all these women. His response was that they were around, but I wouldn't be interested in them as they were broken in various ways. It didn't bother him - he's always liked pretty much everyone, including homeless people that rant at passersby. My brother, who is rather broken himself, but still a nice guy, would fix their cars and electronic gadgets, which probably explained why they hung around longer than they do for your roommate. I got to know some of these women, and I wouldn't have gone out with any of them; they were pleasant people on the surface, but were very needy. In your roommate's case, they might be needy, but it sounds as though they might be very stupid, too.
I think that these women mystify you because you are thinking that they are like you somehow.
Withywindle: I have no theory of men; just improvementizing women.
Dana: He just moved in August. The lease is in everyone's name; we've already schemed extensively about how we might get him evicted, but concluded that his smelling like pot is not actually evidence that he possesses pot, so we can't have the landlord search and evict for that. The women don't bother me personally since he lives on the first floor and I on the second (the not paying bills does) and the chicks have never offended me. But the entire phenomenon is puzzling.
Another relevant movie: Chungking Express.
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