echoes

Well as you probably guessed from the title, I'm having some issues with my roommate. I am a freshman at a small private college pursuing degrees in mechanical engineering and philosophy, by the way.

At the start of the first semester, I thought he was pretty cool, and for the most part we got along well, probably better than most pairs of roommates in our hall. He found out very early that I was an atheist, which seemed to surprise him. Maybe he didn't have much exposure to atheists before me. He's made an occasional joke about that at my expense but I don't care about being called "the antichrist" once in a blue moon.

But I soon realized that he and I were rather different. I hope I don't sound like an elitist, but he honestly is incredibly narrow-minded and bigoted.

This semester he signed up for an anthropology class hoping it'd be a breeze, then dropped it when he realized that it'd actually involve work. What the hell is he doing in college if he doesn't want to work at all? He makes fun of me for "reading too much."

I am virtually positive that he has cheated on his girlfriend. Their phone conversations make me shudder, what with the yelling, and his threatening to "give her the boot." aka dump her.

I have never seen/heard his anti-semitism. But it's something that he claimed that he "inherited" from his mom.

VERY homophobic. Actually maybe he doesn't have anything against gays. But he likes to make jokes about men performing oral sex on other men. He often makes those "jokes"(where the humor is, I don't know) about me, saying "echoes likes to suck cock!" except with my real name of course.

I am not gay and he knows this. But this annoys me to no end, when he makes references to this as often as he does. I was talking about this online with a friend tonight, and then my roommate entered the room. My friend urged me to confront him, so when, predictably enough, he said that less than 5 minutes later, I did.

When I confronted him, he was confused at first. Maybe that was intentional, to try to deceive me, or maybe he really didn't understand what I was criticizing him for. I asked him why he spoke like that, and he never gave an answer; he simply kept asking things like "Are you done?!" etc. etc. He was visibly irritated. Then, probably in an overly emotional state, I called him a "fucking bigot."

Silence followed, and I realized that I been harsh, so I tried to explain civilly that even though I know he's joking it gets tiresome, but that if he does it in public it can be hurtful. He responded that he doesn't do it in public, which I told him that he did, though much less often than he does in private. I had a specific recent example in mind, but didn't want to irritate him further so I didn't give an example and just dropped it.

I realize that all of that is just me criticizing him based on my own morals, which makes the situation difficult because it's not black and white. Something a little more substantial though:

He has done something that I, and certainly the college, consider rather unacceptable. Sufficiently so that he could possibly be kicked out if they were to find out. I don't want to publically name his offence, because I want to err on the side of caution; the rules here state: "(3) You will not violate a person's privacy by publishing against someone's will information that is private and personal."

His offense was arguably not "private and personal" but like I said, I'm not sure that I wish to make this public right now, regardless of how anonymous a message board may be.

When I asked him "You're actually doing that?!" he responded, "what, like you've never _____?" to which I emphatically responded, "no!!" I realize that by not declaring his offense, this claim I bring against him here is far from damning.

I suppose I could probably get him kicked out of college if I really wanted to but I don't want to do that.

And as I said before, every other complaint I have against him is really subjective so there's no easy solution. It's basically just me imposing my morals on him, but I just can't help but be disgusted by him whenever I see him due to the examples listed above.

What should I do? Just try to cope with it for the rest of the year?

Tell my resident advisor? I'm not exactly sure what my RA could do to intervene. It's like asking a couple in divorce court to settle their "irreconcilable differences." (I think that's the legal term). Also, I don't want to make a scene on the floor, and disrupt my relationships with floormates.

Argh, during first semester I considered moving into a different dorm for the second semester. Now I wish I had; hindsight is 20/20. I suppose I could still, but it'd be quite a hassle now that the semester is underway, especially because the only place I'd rather live, you have to apply to live there. The dorm is an offcampus mansion (literally!) where the residents hold weekly discussion/debates over dinner on some subject presented by a resident. An intellectual community like that would be a welcome change of pace, to say the least. And I have a couple of friends who live there.

It's about 2 AM and I'm still really frustrated at the moment so I apologize if my post is overly emotional, incoherent, or too strong.

If anyone has been in a similar situation, or has any insight I'd love to hear it because I don't know how much more I can really stand living with him.

Oxidizing Material

Plant some drugs in his room and call the police?

Chicken Girl

Holy shit! I thought my roommate was bad!

fuct_okc

Stop being such a pussy, cocksucker.




You know I'm kidding... right?

Don't get the guy kicked out of school or get him in any trouble for making stupid jokes. That's just ridiculous. However, I strongly advise that you check out the one bedroom apartments in the area.....

Demosthenes

I'd suggest that you start looking into getting another room, either a single or with another roommate. I'm sure there's another person somewhere on your campus who wants to get rid of his roommate.

echoes

I know, I wasn't planning on doing any of that. Getting him kicked out of school would be extreme, and trying to get him in trouble for the things he says would just be silly, and wouldn't solve the problem.

I'm mad at myself for not doing anything earlier... I guess that maybe I just deluded myself into thinking things were fine. The thing is, is that we've always gotten along, and we did things together as roommates more often that most roommates (at least of 1st year roommates, who can't choose who their roommate is). I guess I always just ignored what he said.

This is a small residential college with nearly everyone living in campus owned housing; moving into an apartment off campus is probably not feasible on such short notice.

I guess I'll ask a friend of mine who lives in that offcampus college-owned house to see if I could still be able to move in at this point. Meanwhile, I'll see if my confronting my roommate last night had any effect.

Monkeybot

You don't have to try to get him kicked out of school -- that's probably a little extreme -- but you could try and hammer out some "ground rules." If you think you're going to be stuck with this guy for the rest of the semester, you should sit him down calmly and say, "Listen. If we're going to be roomies, we need to establish some basic guidelines for getting along." From your end of things, it sounds like this would include no more homophobic/cocksucker jokes directed at you. Ever. (As much as it pains me to say this, it might be asking asking a little too much for him to give up making these jokes completely -- so you might just have to settle for shielding yourself.) There might be other things he says to you that bother you, and of course those would be included too.

If you need help hammering out these ground rules, your RA might be exactly who you need to talk to -- perhaps as a mediator of sorts. I know that at my uni they make all roommate pairs work out and sign a roommate contract (with stuff like "I will not eat her food unless she says its OK" and "No phone calls after 1 a.m." and the like), with the RA's guidance. I'd suggest this tack in your situation.

Sadly, I don't think you can do anything about the cheating on his girlfriend situation, nor should you. Unless you know the girl personally, I'd say butt out. (Of course, if his loud phone calls are distracting you from studying or something, that might be a legitimate issue.) I don't think this is really your beeswax, although I can certainly understand why it bothers you!

Good luck with everything. Your roommate sounds like a real jackass.

oriecat

I've never been in your situation, so I can't really help. I would definitely look into that other house situation, what can you lose by checking? Maybe something is still available and then life would be grand. Like Monkeybot said, talk to the guy and set those ground rules. If he won't stop with the cocksucking jokes, then maybe you can joke back with him and turn it around on him and see how he likes it. He says "echoes likes to suck cock" so you say "no I just do it because you enjoy it so much" or something. I dunno.

Good luck!

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

Talk to your RA or whoever is in charge of the dorms. Explain your problem, and see what they can do about it, like give you a new roomie.

Or, if push comes to shove...

BE WORSE. Never do your laundry--leave it in your basket in the open. Don't do it until you run out of socks--and then do the minimum to last another week.

If you think you can handle it and go to class, stay up REALLY late on your computer, especially if the monitor uses cathode rays.

Perform 'experiments'--the messier and smellier, the better. Microwave a dirty sock, for example.

Get the most annoying music you can find off the internet. Screechy voices, crappy music--Hanson will work wonders--and play it. Loudly. Oh, and constantly. Sing along, but do so out of key.

Wear your clothes inside out.

You have a girlfriend? Have sex with her while he's in the room. During the day. Don't be terribly quiet. IF he gets up to leave, say he should stay and get the pointers.


Those are EXTREME SANCTIONS. REPEAT: EXTREME SANCTIONS. Do NOT preform them unless the situation is desperate, you can afford a few weeks to do it properly.


Oh, and what was the serious offense? If it's serious enough JUST REPORT IT. What he gets from that is what he deserves.

echoes

Let me start by thanking everyone for taking the time to read my post and respond.

Monkeybot: You're right that a roommate contract is a good thing...we already signed one at the start of the year dealing with the issues you mentioned. But obviously I couldn't foresee some things.

You're right that I shouldn't meddle with his relationship with his girlfriend, though I wasn't considering that. I have no way of contacting her so that wouldn't really be feasible anyways. I just posted that to give you guys a good example of why I'm kind of irritated by him.

oriecat: Yes I plan on inquiring about the other house ASAP.

Jesus Tap- Dancin' Christ: LOL! Turn it into a war of attrition and see who's the last man standing, huh? I wish I had a girlfriend to be loudly having sex with, but unfortunately I am single right now.

I'm afraid that barraging him with exceptionally bad music would be ineffective- he already listens to terrible music!

What he did has been lingering in the back of my mind for a couple months, and I've been unsure of whether or not I should do anything. Do you mind if I contact you privately regarding that issue?

Things have cooled off since last night, so I'm going to give him a chance and see how things go for the next few days. Meanwhile I'm still going to inquire with my friend about any openings in that house just in case.