Now You're An Ex-Friend! (and a Ghost!)

[BenjaminBirdie]

Also, why do I keep reading this thread? Most Depressing Thread Ever!!

The one mitigating factor to this most depressing of threads is the recasting of the word ghost as a verb with a new emerging definition.

ghost      [goʊst]
–noun
1.   the soul of a dead person, a disembodied spirit imagined, usually as a vague, shadowy or evanescent form, as wandering among or haunting living persons.
2.   a mere shadow or semblance; a trace: He's a ghost of his former self.
-verb
3.      to break off or dissolve (ties, relations, etc.), often with reservation but ultimately giving greater relief.

Slight edit:

"3.      to break off or dissolve (ties, relations, etc.), often with reservation but ultimately giving greater relief.   Woooohooo hoohoo waa waawwh!!!"

[John Junk]

Ha!  Yeah, I didn't expect this to get as serioius as it did.  I don't know what I expected.  Stories about people cutting others out of their lives!  What could be more fun?!

I agree about the possible sub-thread of roommate trouble.  Perhaps my biggest ghosting ever... [post edited because it was too long, boring, and dredged up too much sludge. -Ed.]

[erika]

I think awful roommate stories deserve their own thread.

I could fill a book. All from about 10 months worth of experiences I had when I was 18-19.

[Tim K in DC]

I think awful roommate stories deserve their own thread.

I could fill a book. All from about 10 months worth of experiences I had when I was 18-19.

I agree, except in my experience they have only gotten worse in the last four or five years or so, and I'm frickin' 36. Once I'm in my new apartment (which already I'm leery about) I'll pipe in some goods on the most recent batch that I will soon be putting in the "former roommate" column.

[Pat K]

For some much-needed levity in this thread, has anyone ever seen this blog before?

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

I think anyone who's ever lived with an asshole for any length of time can find something on there they relate to. Some of these Horrible Roommate Notes definitely take me back to my darkest days of communal living. I've even got a few notes stashed away somewhere that I'd love to submit, if I can ever find them again.

[Sarah]

I think my worst roommate story is pretty impressive:  When I was fifteen, for a few months I rented a room from a twenty-one-year-old college student.  It was purely a business arrangement--I answered an ad in the paper--and I was a good tenant:  paid my rent, cleaned up after myself, didn't invite people over.  He, however, decided I was evil, and, one night while I was sleeping, slashed the cushions of his couch and performed other quiet acts of destruction and then called the cops on me, claiming I was the culprit--and a trespasser, to boot.  I was awakened from a sound sleep by a knock on my bedroom door, followed by interrogation.  Apparently, I came off as more credible than my wacko roommate, because nothing came of the matter.  I do remember being so astonished at what he'd done that I was laughing about it, and perhaps my light-heartedness persuaded the police of my innocence.  My roommate got what he wanted even without my arrest, though, for needless to say I didn't stay there much longer. 

I'm pretty sure the guy was going through some kind of breakdown, because when I saw him a few months later he had shorn his hair and taken to calling himself Allison (his named was Allan). 

[Joe Don from Astoria]

A memorable "worst roommate ever" story that I once read on somethingawful.com has been preserved here.

Worst Roommate Ever

Forewarning, most of the details of this one are gross, in that sort of David Fincher world way. 

[John Junk]

In college once I came home to see the sink filled with hair.  Then I came into my darkened bedroom that I shared with this dude and was like "What the f is up with all the hair?  You can't just leave hair in the sink like that!?"  And he emerges with the darkness with the most fucked up psychopath homemade haircut and goes "I'M HAVING A BAD DAY, JOHNNNN!"  I was just like "Okay!  No problem." (fyi - this is not even close to my worst roommate story, of course.  But it's funny)x

Sarah, -that's a weird story.  That's pretty precocious (correct word-?) of you , renting your own room at 15.

[erika]

In college once I came home to see the sink filled with hair. 

Here I fixed your post to better reflect my personal experience:

In college once I came home to see the sink filled with hair lying in the hallway with a giant hole in the middle of it. There was a note from one of my roommates about some sort of accident and a new sink on the living room floor, which never got reinstalled. 

[Sarah]

renting your own room at 15.

I mentioned this detail only because I think the fact that a twenty-one-year-old did this to a fifteen-year-old makes the behavior all the more loony.  I promise I wasn't trying to show off.

[Sarah]

Worst Roommate Ever

Just read this.  I think the guy telling the story is as crazy as his roommate was.

[John Junk]

I just spent the last 45 minutes reading that.  Yeah, you'd think once you were at the point that you were sealing and barricading yourself at one end of the apartment that maybe there's something wrong with the bigger picture.

The real question is this: Which one of these two guys would be more likely to be a WFMU D.J.?

I lived with a guy who was crazy, but he was much more lovable. He was this guy named "Charlie Funk" and he just listened to P. Funk and Wu Tang all day, joggled his leg while making a zzzzzzzzz sound, smoked cigarettes and weed constantly, lived in two layers of trash, found a turtle that lived on the bottom layer of trash (sometimes things would randomly start moving around and then you'd realize there was this sad box turtle underneath).  He'd put this turtle in a box with a tube at one end and fill the box with his marijuana exhalant.  Nice one.  Add cruelty to animals to the list.  And when he'd get sick his solution was to rocket snot onto the floor. But as far as I could tell he still used the toilet.  HE and my other roommates really liked to do spray-paing graffiti, IN the dorm room. This guy drove me crazy but we basically liked each other.  But I sure got the hell away from him as fast as I could.  And started living with the comparably much more mellow hair-chopping guy who was more slow-burn creepy than out-and-out bonkers.

[iAmBaronVonTito]

i took a friendquaintance into my apartment years ago.  i came home from work one day and found my furniture rearranged, a rice cooker ("i dont own a rice cooker?") on the counter, and all her tokyo pop "read-me-backwards" japanese books on my shelves.  meanwhile, my books were stacked in my room and en route i tripped over a 50lb. bag of rice.  she bought bamboo curtains, floor pillows to eat at the tiny coffee table, and if we went out to eat...asian food only.  japanese, vietnamese, chinese.

eventually, i found out she was half filipino/black.  this explained her selective "im asian, im black" attitude.  we'd be in the grocery line, "i think im the yellowest person in this grocery store" or driving down the street, "if those guys were japanese, that building would be done by now...and earthquake proof."  if we were around black people, she'd begin speaking (in) ebonics- poorly.  it was awful.  last but not least, i mentioned in passing an instance in which i was hanging out with my much younger brother watching spongebob squarepants and i found a bit in it funny.  when i arrived home on my birthday days later, my entire room was decorated in spongebob squarepants.  i had a new bedspread, sheets, and pillow case to break in that nite.  i also got to share my bed with an inflatable patrick doll who kept hitting the spongebob squarepants poster on the wall.  then she disappeared for three/four years.

she called two nites ago. 
who cares??

[John Junk]

i took a friendquaintance into my apartment years ago.  i came home from work one day and found my furniture rearranged, a rice cooker ("i dont own a rice cooker?") on the counter, and all her tokyo pop "read-me-backwards" japanese books on my shelves.  meanwhile, my books were stacked in my room and en route i tripped over a 50lb. bag of rice.  she bought bamboo curtains, floor pillows to eat at the tiny coffee table, and if we went out to eat...asian food only.  japanese, vietnamese, chinese.

eventually, i found out she was half filipino/black.  this explained her selective "im asian, im black" attitude.  we'd be in the grocery line, "i think im the yellowest person in this grocery store" or driving down the street, "if those guys were japanese, that building would be done by now...and earthquake proof."  if we were around black people, she'd begin speaking (in) ebonics- poorly.  it was awful.  last but not least, i mentioned in passing an instance in which i was hanging out with my much younger brother watching spongebob squarepants and i found a bit in it funny.  when i arrived home on my birthday days later, my entire room was decorated in spongebob squarepants.  i had a new bedspread, sheets, and pillow case to break in that nite.  i also got to share my bed with an inflatable patrick doll who kept hitting the spongebob squarepants poster on the wall.  then she disappeared for three/four years.

she called two nites ago. 
who cares??

This post is awesome.

[Joe Don from Astoria]

Yeah that's a good one!

The Spongebob redecoration reminds me of dear old Mom, who would latch on to a perceived preference or association and ride it to the end of the earth.  It was sweet, really; but ask my older sis about the cow patterned plates/butter dish/gravy boat/curtains/etc, or the peppermint patty themed items my younger sister received for years after appearing in You're a Good Man Charlie Brown.