[geeks] Etiquette

[Bill Bradford]

On Sat, Jul 28, 2001 at 09:34:20AM -0600, Jody Stephens wrote:
> 	So I wake up and go to wake friend-2 up. Thinking that friend-2 
> would be occupying the spare bed, I check the spare bed. Negative. The 
> geography of the house is such that friend-1 does not have a door, so 
> I peek in to see if he is there. And oh how he is there. Quiet aftermath
> of the most sticky form conversation. Sheesh. 

When i had first moved to Austin, I was still a "nice guy", despite being
shat on too many times (not literally) by cheating scheming ex-fiances.
I had a female friend (platonic) who didnt want to have to move back "home"
(Dallas) for the summer after attending school in San Marcos (near Austin).

So, me being the stupid nice guy I was, and being VERY lonely and a 
workaholic:  "Sure, you can stay at my place for 3 months, if you can
stand sleeping on the couch".  So, it conspired that she slept on the
couch (until I got a better bed, and let her use my old futon mattress),
I set her up a dumb terminal off my FreeBSD box in the living room so
she could IRC and read her email, etc.  I gave her keys to the
apartment, and so forth.

Then, it got troublesome.  I came home one day and some strange guy 
was sitting on my couch watching TV.  I walked in.  "uh, hi".  He
says "hi" and goes back to watching tv.  I stood there for a minute.
"Uhm, who are you?"  "Martin."  "okay."

Finally she came out of the bathroom and introduced me to her new boyfriend.

As things went on for the next few weeks, it arose that these two 
DEFINITELY got along (if you know what I mean).  In fact, they REALLY
GOT ALONG in my living room floor, on top of the futon mattress.  A lot.
The one-bedroom apartment was situated so that the front door was off
the livingroom, and my bedroom was at the back of the place.  In time, I
found myself occasionally trapped in my room, because I was TOO POLITE
to interrupt them while they were doing their thing.  IN MY LIVING ROOM.

Some mornings, I'd peek out of my door.  'yo.  dude.  cover her ass up
so i can walk through and go to work.'  

My then-girlfriend, who I met *after* my friend had started living in
my apartment, *hated* this situation.  My friend sometimes walked through
the apartment in her bra and underwear to go to the bathroom ,etc.  Me,
being a reasonable person, found no problem with this - we were all adults,
right?  I didnt care if she walked around like that, as long as she got
dressed before friends came over, etc.  My girlfriend, however, was CONVINCED
that I was fucking my "roommate" - even though SHE HAD A BOYFRIEND who was
over ALL THE TIME...

As it ended up, i finally got tired of them using my house to make
whoopee in, and told her that since he had an apartment, she needed to
move in with him.  She finally did, but when I came home that day, I
found all the food gone out of the kitchen (we'd had an "agreement";
I would give her a place to live,etc, in exchange for her cooking 
occasionally and keeping the kitchen stocked... as it was, she kept
that agreement for all fo a week) and when I confronted her about it,
she said "I dont owe ANYBODY, ANYTHING".

I thought "What a bitch.  She could at least say thanks for me putting
a roof over her head.."

Such is life.  I think I could write a book.  I made the decision after
this that anybody female living with me "for free" from that point on
would be someone that I was involved with.  No more favors for friends..

Bill

-- 
Bill Bradford
mrbill at mrbill.net
Austin, TX