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The Advice Goddess
Amy Alkon |
My boyfriend of a year has his own home, as do I. He needs a roommate to help pay bills, and only a woman has responded. She’ll have her own bedroom, but they’ll share a bathroom. He advertised in the campus housing office, so she must be young, or younger than I am (my boyfriend and I are both in our mid 30s). I have an issue with him having a female roommate. What if we have a fight and he doesn’t answer the phone? What if he drinks beers and watches movies with her? I trust him but believe in avoiding tempting situations. He insists he’ll be at my place all the time anyway (which I’ve told him isn’t fair to me), and says I’m just insecure. I said I’m willing to meet her and see how I feel, but he won’t wait to see if others respond (he did once before and ended up stuck).
— The Girlfriend
Don’t be too quick to assume this prospective roommate is some young
hottie. The joke’ll be on you when you discover she’s some 60-year-old
former housewife who’s going back to school and borrowing his razor in
the morning to mow her chin hairs.
If his roommate ends up being considerably younger, hotter, and less
bearded, sure, something could go on between them. But, unless you’ve
got the guy chained to a dripping pipe in the basement, he’s always
just a barstool or bus seat away from temptation. So, even now, when
you have a fight and he doesn’t answer the phone, it may be because he
spent the night rearranging his sock drawer — or “rearranging his sock
drawer” with some ex-stripper named Blaize.
As for his contention that he’ll be at your place “all the time
anyway,” he probably isn’t saying so because he’ll pay less on his
water bill if he flushes at your house. Chances are, he’s trying to
allay your fears that his living arrangement will become one long
half-time show, with his roommate dropping out of school to spend her
days vacuuming his living room topless. At the same time, he’s probably
trying to maintain some semblance of dignity as a guy in his mid 30s
who has to take in a boarder to make ends meet.
Yet, there you are, turning his solution to his financial crisis into
the rental version of HOTorNOT.com. And exactly how ugly and
disagreeable must a prospective roommate be before your boyfriend can
get out of selling his blood to keep the lights on?
There are easier and less complicated ways to get extra-relationship
sex than advertising for it to store its tampons under your bathroom
sink. Now, either you have reason to trust your boyfriend or you don’t.
You don’t get to tell another adult what to do, which is what you’re
trying to do with “I’m willing to meet her and see how I feel.”
Meanwhile, you’re not only telling him you have little faith in him,
but suggesting he’s settled for too little in a girlfriend, since you
seem convinced your replacement is just a one-bedroom/shared-bath ad
away.
You’d actually have more control by relinquishing control. Instead of
telling him what to do in other relationships, show him why he wouldn’t
want to do anything that jeopardizes yours. It’s really the best way of
seeing to it that there’s no woman he’d rather open a dented can of
beans for: “Au poivre, darling? Or would you prefer tartare?”
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Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 171 Pier Ave, No. 280, Santa Monica,
Calif. 90405, or e-mail
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(www.advicegoddess.com).
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