On the one hand, while nothing school related was worked on today, I actually was productive in a weird sense.  In house stuff, and also in personal/mental stuff.  Which is good, despite some of my frustration over immediate things.

I took over the house meeting, as I promised I would do, as I had notes about everything I wanted to go through.  First I went through the chores, and talking about how we need a chore wheel/schedule.  I couldn't even get the words "enforcement mechanism" out before roommate J (boyfriend of roommate C; letters make things easy), who is one of the problematic ones, got super nasty with me, saying no immediately and just getting all hostile and gross and shit.  My response was to call that shit out right there; I said that despite what he and roommate C seemed to believe, free-riding was happening without an enforcement mechanism, and that I couldn't believe that any of us - all political science majors - could actually argue that.  As roommate J became more and more nasty, I told him that I did not appreciate his tone and everything; that he wasn't even listening and was being openly hostile and it was for this reason I hate having these meetings.  Roommate C tried to say I was being that way as well, to which I said that the only reason I was being hostile is because I was attacked first, for no reason whatsoever.  And that is how it was; I was reciprocating.  I then said that we all needed to take a deep breath and calm down; we can disagree with stuff, but we need to think about things logically and refrain from getting heated and everything.

So I took a deep breath and said my proposed enforcement mechanism, which was agreed upon because it had involved zero monetary punishments.  It isn't the best, but it is hard to get a monetary punishment with two people so adamantly opposed to it.

I went through the rest of my list of things, being met pretty much with zero resistance, until the rent allocation issue.  Now, I started off saying that I hope this part of the conversation does not get intense and people keep an open mind.  That I believed since we moved in that the rent was unfair, but I never said anything in an effort to avoid confrontation (and also really because I was in a bad place and even though it was unfair to me I said that that didn't matter because what I wanted wasn't important, etc., etc.).  Now, however, I have recognized that I shouldn't be complacent with things that are blatantly skewed in favour of some at the expense of others.  I presented my new rent allocation proposal, which was found via figuring out the square footage of the common space and the bedrooms, and then multiplying those by how many dollars we were paying per foot for the whole house.  Basically, we are paying for square footage; a lot of it is nonnegotiable, but the portion from the rooms changes things.

Roommates C and J, after I explained everything to them, were clearly unhappy.  However, they were quiet, for the most part.  Probably because it is incredibly difficult to argue in the face of numbers like that.  J tried to tell me that he shouldn't have to pay as much for the common space, but I countered that that is his choice, and not a negotiating tool/strategy.  Roommate C then started in on the room sizes and now wants the master bedroom (roommate B's room) since the price is cheaper.  However, Roommate B is unlikely to move, and if that is the strategy they want to go with, he is going to demand that they pay him money for the entire year he was overcharged for that room.  If however, they stay in theirs, we will ignore the fact that he and I paid a disproportionately large amount.

We also got into a tussle when roommate C said something about "living paycheck to paycheck."  I got kind of annoyed, and finally said something I've been wanting to say, and that was about the constant trips and vacations they went on.  That "living paycheck to paycheck" loses its luster after you just returned from Germany/Europe and were planning on going camping that weekend.  I must have struck a nerve, because roommate C yelled at me, saying that I really "needed to mind my own business about that stuff."  I was taken aback, but I said that it is my business when house stuff is not being paid for or rent is being allocated unfairly because of it.  I had to get roommate B to help me with that also; he explained that they were basically picking vacations over house, from what it appears to us.  They kind of shut up after that.  Roommate J explained something to me and (while I believe it was bullshit, probably) I said that that explanation cleared things up a little more and allowed me to understand, and that sometimes that openness is a really good thing.

They said they had to think about it, but honestly if they do not accept this new rent allocation I will believe them selfish and unfair, since this is mathematically the best way to divide up the rent.  Yes, they would be going up a lot, but that is the point of it all, since they were underpaying like crazy.  Also, I hate how they talk like them having less money means they get to pay less, and act as though roommate B and I are sitting on mountains of cash.  I probably have more bills to pay than roommate C (due to car stuff and Callie stuff), and we make the same amount of money.  So the fact that I am better at saving my money than them should not hurt me in the rent allocation.

I did say at one point that we are not merchants, and shouldn't be fighting for the lowest price.  We are friends, and should want the fairest price for all of us.

So yeah, if they don't take this new rent allocation I will be quite unhappy and disappointed in them.


Roommate B's ex-girlfriend apparently keeps messaging her so he has been sad today and I've been trying to do stuff to make him feel less poopy.  Luckily, he is noticing her...crazy, I suppose, and that is good for his healing process.  She's just been not leaving him alone despite that he keeps telling her to, and he told me today that she apparently sent me a facebook message.  Lo and behold, it was in my 'other' box, and it was basically her telling me that I was a horrible person who was a main reason they broke up.  That there was definitely something going on between him and I and that I was terrible for sharing a bed in a hotel room with him.  She basically called me a terrible feminist, saying that "no one who believes in the rights and solidarity of women would do what you did," and stuff.  Meanwhile, she is sitting there pretty much insinuating that I can't have a platonic friendship with him, and that she was convinced he cheated on her with me.

I laughed while reading the whole thing, because so much of it was total bullshit garbage.

She made it so that I couldn't respond to her, which is probably best for her, because I would have just gotten super sarcastic and shit with her.  And linked her to the wambulance video.

But she really is a fucking terrible person and I'm glad roommate B is done with her.

I try to give him advice from experience.

Though from things I've heard, I'd pin his ex as worse than mine.  But there are a lot of parallels with things and how he and I handled everything.