Moving Story

The reality of sharing a house with three girls, two French and one Chinese, has fallen short of the expectation.

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Before coming to Birmingham I took delight in telling people, in slightly suggestive tones, that I'd be sharing with two French girls. Not that I really thought there would be anything sleazy going on, I just derived a certain perverse pleasure from suggesting it. Having said that, I did expect to get to know the girls a bit and that we would be friends. It makes me sad to say that this hasn't happened either.

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One of the girls is quite a difficult character, I think, others have said so too, I get the impression that she's an only child and she's not at all sociable. She was the last to move in and, it seems to me, the rest of us have been influenced by her since then. It's my observation that she only talks to me when she wants something, such as when we had a broadband connection put in, in her room. She needed help setting it up and I ended up ringing the helpline on my phone, which meant that I was charged for the call not her. We got it sorted out quite quickly and I tested the connection by typing in the address for this blog - so it's possible she might be reading this, in a way I hope she does [but not for another couple of weeks] I'm not likely to express my frustration effectively in person.

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Later the same night, I asked her if I could check my emails in her room, as she had the monopoly on the internet at that time, even though we were all paying for it, and she was really not at all willing to help, she said we might get a wireless router soon so I could check then, not very helpful.

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When we did get the wireless router and I'd spent £25 on a wireless network card to use with it, she put a password onto the system (which is fair enough) and it stopped working for me. I asked her if we could do something like change the password and she refused to help again.

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Included with the internet deal was a Telewest tv decoder, which, naturally, resided in her room, which meant that she had the monopoly on that too. We have a lounge downstairs - I mentioned once before that I'd left a packet of cards and minaiture table tennis set in there, in the hope of enticing the girls into social activities - which would be a good place to keep a tv I think. We could all watch it then.

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I also tried to be friendly with this girl on a couple of occasions by inviting her to play cards. The first time she said 'no', and the second time she condescended to join us but then changed her mind when I told her we were playing poker because she doesn't know how to play.

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About a month ago I returned to the house on a Sunday afternoon, after being home for the weekend, to find an aerial lead extending from the lounge downstairs to the other French girl's room upstairs. This really annoyed me, it seemed that the selfish attitude of one was rubbing off on the rest of us. It was at this point that I started to seriously think about moving out.

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The two French girls spend all their time in their rooms and only come out to cook and go to work now. The Chinese girl, I would have to say, is more sociable but I don't see her very much.

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There are other things about the house that annoy me, each person has their own washing up liquid and sponge - except me that is, I just use whichever is nearest. What kind of person has to have their own sponge???!!! There is also a store cupboard downstairs which is meant to be for the Chinese girl and myself because we have smaller rooms but the two French girls have put loads of stuff in there too.

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Anyway, I've looked at a couple of other houses and I've decided to move into the first one I looked at. When I went to look around, I recognised the student who opened the door because I'd been in his quiz team at the start of term. The room is bigger and slightly cheaper, in a better area and they have a tv in a communal lounge where they also eat off their laps. It's not a perfect house but it seems a lot more attractive to me right now. I'll be moving in in January

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I told the landlord and his wife last week, they were quite understanding and they've said that they will return my deposit. They also seem to have told the rest of the housemates which saves me the trouble.

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One final thing which I find quite funny as well as frustrating. Last night I went into the kitchen and took half of my washing out of the machine. At the same time, the difficult girl was bringing shopping in, she couldn't fail to notice what I was doing, although she might not have thought about it consciously. I took my bundle of clothes through to the lounge and started hanging them on the driers there, everyone uses the driers in the lounge, it's the only thing anyone does in the lounge. As I was hanging my clothes I heard a click and it went dark. This girl had switched the light off without checking that anyone was in there - assuming that it wasn't deliberate that is. I should have said 'oi!', or something, anything, but I was too shocked, and then the moment had passed. I carried on haniging my clothes in relative darkness before getting the other half of them out of the machine. The girl was still sorting out her shopping. Entering the lounge again, it seemed like an interesting experiment, as well as a practical consideration, to switch the light on again. Ten seconds later, click. I put my head in my hands and began to chuckle sadly.

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You my think me a bitter little man, and I think you may be right. If I were a better human being, I would be able to deal with such difficult situations more effectively, or at least, deal with them a little bit. As it is, I avoid confrontation, probably because I don't handle confrontations well, I never express myself very well when put on the spot.

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So, anyway, I'm moving out, it might seem a little cowardly but there's nothing to be gained by sharing a house with someone who seems to view me - and everybody else - as second-class.