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Roommate problem....

brungeman

I give a shirt
Jan 17, 2006
5,170
0
da Burgh
This actually has much less to do with sex and much more to do with sensitivity to your roommate. Your religion (if you are not a graduate student of Christian religion as an academic exercise) tells you two basic things:
1. Have no gods before Me.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Over and over in the New Testament, and especially the Epistles, examples are given of modifying your behavior if it offends your brother. It doesn't really matter if you are right, or are not doing anything that God would call "missing the mark"... if you are causing your brother sorrow or confusion, you're doing it wrong.

No, it's not easy to have to change what you are doing to accommodate someone who has different sensitivities than you. But it's a good exercise. If you have great difficulty doing this, then you need to ask yourself why it's so important to die on that hill.

Those are my thoughts.
so what you are saying is... if this roomate is offended by J's cooking up some Ramen Noodles, then he should stop because he should modify his behavior to accomodate his roomate/neighbor's craziness?
 

Secret Squirrel

There is no Justice!
Dec 21, 2004
8,150
1
Up sh*t creek, without a paddle
so what you are saying is... if this roomate is offended by J's cooking up some Ramen Noodles, then he should stop because he should modify his behavior to accomodate his roomate/neighbor's craziness?
More like 'pick your battles'.

Me...I'd go for the girl. :pirate2: And just to rub it in, put the head board right against his wall.

Then bust it all Ron Jeremy piledriver style.

Ramen noodles...that's an argument I could concede. :monkey:
 

brungeman

I give a shirt
Jan 17, 2006
5,170
0
da Burgh
More like 'pick your battles'.

Me...I'd go for the girl. :pirate2: And just to rub it in, put the head board right against his wall.

Then bust it all Ron Jeremy piledriver style.

Ramen noodles...that's an argument I could concede. :monkey:
I'm not sayin, I'm just sayin!



he is a poor grad student, Ramen Noodles may be the only food he gets!

PS rep given!
 

Toshi

Harbinger of Doom
Oct 23, 2001
38,029
7,549
This actually has much less to do with sex and much more to do with sensitivity to your roommate. Your religion (if you are not a graduate student of Christian religion as an academic exercise) tells you two basic things:
1. Have no gods before Me.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.
would a threesome fulfill this requirement?
 

$tinkle

Expert on blowing
Feb 12, 2003
14,591
6
JRogers: you know exactly what you should do. i can't imagine you were ever on the fence here. but the fact that you put a moral issue to the monkey may mean i'm wrong.


[cue the haters]
 

H8R

Cranky Pants
Nov 10, 2004
13,959
35
Most Germans I've met are busy bodies.

Tell him to mind his own business. Also, tell him 10 pm is WAY TOO EARLY FOR A YOUNG MAN TO GO TO BED ON SATURDAY.

Give him a can of Red Bull and some condoms and kick his ass out the door when your girl is there.
 

Nobody

Danforth Kitchen Whore
Sep 5, 2001
1,481
3
Toronto
Dig deeper and address the issues:

a) You having intimate relations with a woman in the next room?
b) Intimate relations between unmarried adults?
c) You gettin' some and him envious cuz he's not? [seen that one before]
d) Sex is creepy in general?

If A: tell him earplugs or move out or shut up. Nicely.

If B: I don't recall the New Testament entry that forbids it, but that's a discussion that you are better prepared to have than I am. I just rely on the "don't proselytize morality on me or i'll hit you with my +2 Mace."

If C: envy, while real and valid, is unChristian...

If D: tell him he needs some serious therapy, somewhere else...

But, primarily, open up a real dialog if you can.
 

trailblazer

Monkey
May 2, 2005
464
4
Jamaica
better end the rental and get a place of your own. Living with a virgin sounds.....well........ew.
creepy......not that there's anything wrong with saving up your love for that special day/person?......but riding with a newbie can be trying.
 

JRogers

talks too much
Mar 19, 2002
3,785
1
Claremont, CA
This actually has much less to do with sex and much more to do with sensitivity to your roommate. Your religion (if you are not a graduate student of Christian religion as an academic exercise) tells you two basic things:
1. Have no gods before Me.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Over and over in the New Testament, and especially the Epistles, examples are given of modifying your behavior if it offends your brother. It doesn't really matter if you are right, or are not doing anything that God would call "missing the mark"... if you are causing your brother sorrow or confusion, you're doing it wrong.

No, it's not easy to have to change what you are doing to accommodate someone who has different sensitivities than you. But it's a good exercise. If you have great difficulty doing this, then you need to ask yourself why it's so important to die on that hill.

Those are my thoughts.
While my own personal religion is at odds with much of the tradition, I do understand what you are saying and primarily agree...but would add the caveat that Christianity is not my only guide.

The pragmatic fact is that if someone asks you to stop something, then your choice to follow that request or not rests on the reasonability of that request (Christian or not, we all operate like this; life would be unlivable if we did not). If my roommate asked me to stop, say, eating meat, because he found it reprehensible to the highest degree, I would likely refuse based on the arbitrariness of the request.

In the case here, his request is just as arbitrary to me because I reject whatever theological or moral grounds he stands on. Thinking in this way, I feel that complying with his request would implicitly (if to nobody else but me) accept his theological/moral reasoning.

Further, to take the eating meat example slightly further, if he did aske me to do such a thing, I would be pragmatic about it and try to reach a compromise. That, in my mind, is what living peacably with someone is about. I would refrain from putting the food too near him, from filling the house with it, from eating something he doesn't like all the time, etc. In other words, I would make my actions affect him as little as possible while still maintaining my independence.

That is what I did here. He didn't see her, couldn't have heard much and I didn't discuss it with him, but he STILL found something wrong and told me about it after ONE time, asking me to stop. That isn't compromise. When two people are at odds over something like this and neither are going to relent in their positions, they need to work out a compromise. This is America, kids.

And, if it matters, we did not have sex. And, now that I think about it, it does matter. If I do what he asks then, hypothetically, suppose I got it on in the middle of the day and the girl left soon after. Would this be allowed? How far would I be willing to acquiesce just so he doesn't feel bad once I've set the precedent that I will stop doing something just because he wants me to?

These arguments may point to my own uncharitable nature, but I believe I have other grounds to stand on here. At the very least, I find that my refusal to do what he asked is not wrong, it just does not, perhaps, reach to a higher standard- one of charity. I freely admit my weakness here. But that is my problem, not his.


I probably wouldn't care about this so much if the girlfriend didn't live in the ghetto (fun getting to/from there at night) with 3 other girls (awkward for me sometimes) and have a single bed. That last part kills me. It's like I'm in a dorm room again. I enjoy not driving home at 3am and also getting more than 4 hours of sleep in a night.
 

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
40,932
13,130
Portland, OR
Dude, wait until you get married, it only gets worse. The last time I tried to bring a chick home, my "roommate" got all pissed off.
 

urbaindk

The Real Dr. Science
Jul 12, 2004
4,819
0
Sleepy Hollar
I probably wouldn't care about this so much if the girlfriend didn't live in the ghetto (fun getting to/from there at night) with 3 other girls (awkward for me sometimes) and have a single bed. That last part kills me. It's like I'm in a dorm room again. I enjoy not driving home at 3am and also getting more than 4 hours of sleep in a night.
Wait you're complaining that if you spent the night at your girlfriend's place in the ghetto, you'd have to share a single bed with 3 girls? :ban:
 

Jeremy R

<b>x</b>
Nov 15, 2001
9,698
1,053
behind you with a snap pop
You are supposed to "turn the other cheek."
In this case it would be my ass cheeks, which is what I would be turning and showing him while I told him to mind his own damn business.
This world is often "uncomfortable."
Tell him you are just helping him get used to it.
 

Hawkeye

Monkey
Jan 8, 2002
623
0
Naperville, IL
While my own personal religion is at odds with much of the tradition, I do understand what you are saying and primarily agree...but would add the caveat that Christianity is not my only guide.

The pragmatic fact is that if someone asks you to stop something, then your choice to follow that request or not rests on the reasonability of that request (Christian or not, we all operate like this; life would be unlivable if we did not). If my roommate asked me to stop, say, eating meat, because he found it reprehensible to the highest degree, I would likely refuse based on the arbitrariness of the request.

In the case here, his request is just as arbitrary to me because I reject whatever theological or moral grounds he stands on. Thinking in this way, I feel that complying with his request would implicitly (if to nobody else but me) accept his theological/moral reasoning.

Further, to take the eating meat example slightly further, if he did aske me to do such a thing, I would be pragmatic about it and try to reach a compromise. That, in my mind, is what living peacably with someone is about. I would refrain from putting the food too near him, from filling the house with it, from eating something he doesn't like all the time, etc. In other words, I would make my actions affect him as little as possible while still maintaining my independence.

That is what I did here. He didn't see her, couldn't have heard much and I didn't discuss it with him, but he STILL found something wrong and told me about it after ONE time, asking me to stop. That isn't compromise. When two people are at odds over something like this and neither are going to relent in their positions, they need to work out a compromise. This is America, kids.

And, if it matters, we did not have sex. And, now that I think about it, it does matter. If I do what he asks then, hypothetically, suppose I got it on in the middle of the day and the girl left soon after. Would this be allowed? How far would I be willing to acquiesce just so he doesn't feel bad once I've set the precedent that I will stop doing something just because he wants me to?

These arguments may point to my own uncharitable nature, but I believe I have other grounds to stand on here. At the very least, I find that my refusal to do what he asked is not wrong, it just does not, perhaps, reach to a higher standard- one of charity. I freely admit my weakness here. But that is my problem, not his.


I probably wouldn't care about this so much if the girlfriend didn't live in the ghetto (fun getting to/from there at night) with 3 other girls (awkward for me sometimes) and have a single bed. That last part kills me. It's like I'm in a dorm room again. I enjoy not driving home at 3am and also getting more than 4 hours of sleep in a night.

So his issue was he doesn't like the fact that a women stayed in your bed. Or was there some "sexual" noises that may have come from the room that made him uncomfortable?

Not that I want to get to much into your business but I had a similar situation when I was in college.

Our apartment had thin walls and my roommate and I could hear just about everything that went on in each others room including heavy breathing etc. There was a decent stretch of time that I had a couple different girlfriends at the same time or close to the same time. My roomy's girlfriend took moral issue with what I was doing and would complain to him and sometiimes try to ruin my rap.

To make a long story short we took a 1 inch hole saw cut holes in the drywall and filled the mutual wall cavaites up with that "great stuff" spray foam and spackled over the holes. It saved us some hassle and saved our friendship.

If you decided to do this please use a little of the foam at a time. It expands a great deal and will break the drywall if you over fill the wall cavity.
 

OGRipper

back alley ripper
Feb 3, 2004
10,647
1,116
NORCAL is the hizzle
I am not hearing a real explanation. It's not clear if it's a religious thing or more of a practical thing, as in some concern that she'll be moving in permanently and he'll have two roommates instead of one. (I once shared a place with three other guys, and one tried to have his girlfriend move in without paying any additional rent. The rest of us were not happy.)

Regardless, if you want to keep him as a roomate, you need to sit down and talk to the guy. You can't respond to his concerns if he can't articulate what they are.
 

Hawkeye

Monkey
Jan 8, 2002
623
0
Naperville, IL
I am not hearing a real explanation. It's not clear if it's a religious thing or more of a practical thing, as in some concern that she'll be moving in permanently and he'll have two roommates instead of one. (I once shared a place with three other guys, and one tried to have his girlfriend move in without paying any additional rent. The rest of us were not happy.)

Regardless, if you want to keep him as a roomate, you need to sit down and talk to the guy. You can't respond to his concerns if he can't articulate what they are.

Same dude from my thread tried to have his girlfriend "move in" too.

He gave her a key (which we stole from her key ring) and she was over showering, watching TV, etc when he was not there.

One month we divided the bill 5 ways instead of four and he was PISSED!!

Needless to say it solved the problem.
 

SkaredShtles

Michael Bolton
Sep 21, 2003
65,375
12,529
In a van.... down by the river
Same dude from my thread tried to have his girlfriend "move in" too.

He gave her a key (which we stole from her key ring) and she was over showering, watching TV, etc when he was not there.

One month we divided the bill 5 ways instead of four and he was PISSED!!

Needless to say it solved the problem.
I had a roommate situation like that once, too. Girlfriend basically moved in. I divide all the bills appropriately and it ended shortly after that.
 

jimmydean

The Official Meat of Ridemonkey
Sep 10, 2001
40,932
13,130
Portland, OR
I had a roommate situation like that once, too. Girlfriend basically moved in. I divide all the bills appropriately and it ended shortly after that.
When my wife and I were dating, she moved in for the last few months of the lease. I divided all the bill up again and my roommates were way happy. I did it out of courtesy because I am weird like that.
 

JRogers

talks too much
Mar 19, 2002
3,785
1
Claremont, CA
To clarify, again: if he heard any "noises" he must have spider senses or something. We were way louder just talking in the living room than anything else. There's no way he could be pissed about that. It was the simple fact that I had a girl in there for the night. He said it "made me uncomfortable" not "it kept me up and I lost sleep"- if it were the latter (which I originally thought) I wouldn't have a problem.
 

TreeSaw

Mama Monkey
Oct 30, 2003
17,669
1,847
Dancin' over rocks n' roots!
If something bothered me as much as this bothers him, I would have definitely discussed it beforehand
:stupid: I would let him know that you aren't willing to compromise on this and if it was this important to him, he should have discussed the issue before moving in together. Sex or not...shouldn't matter. If he's willing to have friends stay on the sofa then behind closed doors shouldn't be an issue.