contrary to what my experience thus far may have led me to believe, colocatrice does NOT happen to be french for 'anxious middle-aged woman who waits around for her young and stupid american co-inhabitant to screw up.'
yet charlotte, my own coloc, the woman charging me 600 euros a month to share her apartment with her, happens to be all those things and a bag of potato chips. a bag of uncool, extremely stale potato chips (just so we're all on the same page here.)
i'm the pig in this scenario.my first impression was definitely misleading. when i first met her, i thought we were going to get on great. the apartment itself isn't much, but she has all these awesome books and quasi-artsy photographs hanging up and she talked to us about her friends who are in bands and work in galleries and model for painters and do other hip things befitting the image i have of youngish adult parisians.
unfortunately, it didn't take all that long for the truth to reveal itself beneath that shallow surface of european cool, that truth being: for someone who, at this point, should be used to big city single gal life, charlotte is strangely neurotic, paranoid, and immature.
she hates being alone at night, and requests that i be in touch if i'm ever going to be out late. she will ask me several times a day, beginning right after our 'good mornings' until i give her a definitive answer, what my plans are for that particular evening. more often than not i don't actually know, and i tell her so. she then, without fail, follows up with a request that i send her a text\call her when i know what i'll be doing. yes, i realize that this isn't an especially outrageous demand, but come. on. i barely know her, she barely knows me, what i do with my free time should be none of her 'swax, so long as it's not interfering with the way she lives her life. although apparently what i do DOES affect what she chooses to do, because she's CRAZY and incapable of being on her own for more than an hour.
perhaps i'm overreacting here. then again, i'm not paying ridiculous amounts of money each month to have a nagging mother figure in my life, especially given the fact that my own mother doesn't even do these things anymore.
the other night for example, i was out watching the eurocup semifinal game with some friendlets. i told her i'd be home "after the game," which ended a little before 11. this is the text i received from her at 11:32-
'le match est il fini? tu m'écris un sms quand tu es sur le chemin du retour?'
ughh. typical.
once she was sick, and texted me asking that i stop by before spending the evening out. i didn't respond right away. she called twice. finally she sent another text informing me she had a friend coming over around 7 to 'take care of her.' (mind you, this woman is 34 years old.) when i finally did arrive home, it turns out the only reason she had wanted me to come back at all was so she could tell me to lock and bolt the door behind me.
and the fun doesn't stop there. for whatever reason, charlotte seems to believe it's only a matter of time before i fuck something up. so far, i've been accused of breaking her washing machine (and am now not allowed to use it without supervision) and of leaving the stove burner on, even when i very clearly had not. apparently on this particular morning, she had woken up, gone to the kitchen to get her breakfast on, and, felt that the burner was still hot (BECAUSE I HAD JUST COOKED SOMETHING). naturally, she assumed i was the one in the wrong and had forgotten to turn the stove off.
overall, her entire attitude towards me is very condescending. all these little annoyances really add up and begin to take their toll after a while.
some have suggested i bring these matters up with her, but i get the impression that such an attempt would be futile. she is who she is, and unfortunately, you just can't reason with crazay.
okay, after a re-read this post comes off a little harsh. i should probably end with a couple of positives.
1. she likes Lost. Lost is a great show.
2. in the grand scheme of the possibilities provided by the craig's list apartment share section, it could have been worse.
oohf, i'm spent.
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