Is not that he’s a bad roommate. No, it’s not that at all.
If he was inconsiderate and doing things like leaving dishes and dirty socks all over the apartment or playing death metal at 3 am, then maybe I’d feel justified in my dislike of him. If there was just one discernible grievance that I could explain without sounding immensely childish, then maybe I wouldn’t feel so unsettled by his presence.
But there’s not, at least not a good one, so I’ve kept it to myself until now.
Let me preface this by saying Dave is polite, quiet, and clean. He’s never been late on rent and he always takes my boundaries into consideration.
That might make it sound like he goes out of his way to avoid me or that we never interact, but it’s not like that. I talk to Dave more than I have my past roommates and our conversations are pleasant. Never once have I had to argue with him.
Dave just seems introverted, as am I, and we respect each other’s space. If we are in the common area together, we’ll sit and talk. We’ve even binged a couple of Netflix series together since we both are into the horror genre… though I’ve had to tap out a few times. Dave’s stomach for gore is much stronger than mine.
So to surmise, for the past year, Dave has regularly sat next to me on a ratty, thrift store couch just shooting the breeze and I’ve enjoyed our conversations.
I’m telling you all this because I know that when I tell you what my problem with Dave is, everyone is going to try to tell me that I must have a problem with something else. I know that you’ll try to tell me I’m just focusing on a little thing because there’s something else, something about his personality that unsettles me.
But there’s not.
After almost a whole year of living with this man, I can safely say there isn’t a single aspect of Dave’s personality I find off putting. I look forward to our Netflix nights and think he is quite funny in a dry sort of way.
He doesn’t really do anything that would typically upset me. One of my biggest pet peeves from past experiences with roommates is when they take something of mine (batteries, clothes, MONEY) without asking. Dave has never intruded on my personal space or stolen anything from me.
Honestly, it should feel like I’ve hit the jackpot after my last roommate, Ryan. He ruined the sink by pouring hot grease down the drain and bailed before fixing the damages. Ryan also had his girl over almost every night and they were so loud that I received notes from the neighbors.
Now, Dave’s not asexual by any means. He’s a couple years younger than me, 24, and like clockwork he has a different woman come over every two weeks on Saturday night. The first month he’d lived here, he’d given me a heads up that he’d had a date. I immediately was reminded of Ryan and became worried that I’d gotten another roommate from hell, but nope. I was, thankfully, wrong.
Each ‘date night’ Dave and some random girl stumble through the front door. Maybe the girl will wave at me or say hello, and if they do, that’s the only thing I hear out of them.
It’s completely quiet after they enter Dave’s room.
I work from home, so I often sleep in late, especially on the weekends. Dave knows this and honestly, I’m surprised by how much he takes this fact into consideration.
I’ve already got a pair of noise canceling headphones (purchased during the Ryan era) and I honestly don’t mind wearing them to bed twice a month, but there’s no need.
Well, there’s no need on his date nights… the other nights. Well, I’ll get to that in a moment.
The point I’m trying to make is that Dave is so respectful, Ihave never once been woken up by one of his one night stands leaving. In fact I’ve never even seen one leave. Dave is just that considerate. He keeps that entire part of his life as quiet as possible for my sake.
He always makes breakfast the next morning. At first I thought it might be as some sort of apology to me, maybe thinking he’d been too loud or made me uncomfortable with his Saturday night antics (even though I assured him as long as I don’t have to hear it, I don’t care what he’s doing in his room) but now I think it’s some sort of ritual. Maybe a self congratulatory thing? Either way, every other Sunday morning I wake up to the aroma of meat frying.
Dave keeps the fridge stocked up well with excellent cuts of meat and he seems to love cooking, even if he doesn’t eat much. Still, his largest smiles are reserved for sizzling meat. The nights after he gets lucky seem to be when he really gets into the chef zone.
We have a meat grinder. Just a small counter top appliance, and Dave uses the grinder to craft the most delicious sausages every other Sunday. He often shares his food with me, not stingy in the least, but he’s particularly insistent that I partake on these mornings. I asked why once and he simply said that the meat is ‘best eaten fresh.’
He seems to replinish his ingredients on Sunday mornings, though it’s not exactly clear where he shops. I’ve never seen cuts quite this color or texture at our local grocer. I’m pretty sure they’re pork sausages, but they taste different. Softer and juicier. If Dave opened a restaurant, I’m pretty sure he could be a billionaire.
Dave’s kindness makes me feel guilty. He shares so willingly and never oversteps any of my boundaries. None of my other roommates (and I’ve had…. 5 by this point in my life) have ever looked so happy to eat breakfast with me. Dave won’t even let me pay him back for the meat, which I assume must be expensive due to its quality, but he just smiles and says that it’s much cheaper than I’d think.
Writing this out, I realize how petty I sound. Dave gives from the goodness of his heart, whereas past roommates (cough Ryan cough) stole food from Tupperware with my name written in bold, capital letters. Still, I think I’d take Ryan over Dave any day and the reason is so stupid I don’t even want to admit it in this Reddit thread anonymously.
The thing about Dave is that he chews too loud.
I know I’m going to be flooded with comments suggesting things like: wear noise canceling headphones, listen to music, or the good old: “Are you seriously that put off by his chewing? This kid is sharing food and walking on eggshells so that you don’t feel uncomfortable.” And yeah. I can see where those comments are coming from, but you don’t understand.
It’s every night.
I hear these noises through the walls, headphones or not. It’s this crunching, slurping sound that starts at 3am and goes on until the sun rises. The noises are so much louder and pervasive than someone chewing potato chips with their mouth open. No matter what I try to block it out, it permeates through my defenses and echoes through my brain as loudly as microphone feedback. That horrid crunching sound punctuated by wet gulps and the occasional belch has become the soundtrack of my nightmares.
Well, when I’m able to sleep long enough to dream, that is.
I feel weird about bringing this up to Dave. Something in my mind is screaming out, saying that I absolutely can not mention this to him and I think I know why.
Dave doesn’t eat much. Aside from Sunday’s and the rare rib dinner, I never see him eat. He’s so skinny that I suspect he struggles with some sort of eating disorder. I tried asking about this once in a round about way and Dave had responded with “People often can’t stomach the sight of my meals”
So, yeah, probably an eating disorder. Since he’s so small, he might have experienced some bullying in high school or maybe grown up in poverty and developed some sort of issue with binging after he got money.
Either way, that’s just speculation. The little voice in my head keeps screaming to never break up the sounds because how awful would it be if I made him feel bad for simply eating at night? What if I worsened his condition? Would I have to watch Dave waste away because of a petty comment?
I don’t want to know the answer to those questions.
All I know is he doesn’t feel comfortable eating full meals in front of others very often. Again, it’s been almost a year since he moved in and he’s still not even comfortable around me.
Maybe he can sense my issue with him. I hope not, as I do think he’s a wonderful person with the exception of this one petty thing.
But back on topic: the chewing.
The only thing I can think to compare it to is my mother’s dog. She had a pit mix named Daisy as I was growing up. She was a beautiful dog with short, black fur that loved cuddling and was the epitome of sweetness. I thought she couldn’t hurt a fly.
But that thought was revoked in a violent fashion.
One day a friend of mine broke into our house. He was trying to pull a stupid prank and climbed through the kitchen window in a scream mask, intent on scaring me.
And he did.
I shrieked like a little girl and Daisy came barreling into the kitchen. I saw her mouth open, all of those white teeth suddenly looked much sharper as the muscles in her neck bulged. She seemed to practically soar past me. Daisy chomped into my friend’s shoulder, knocking him down. There was this resounding crack as he fell.
At first, I thought he’d hit his head on the counter, maybe even broken his neck. But the crack was actually Daisy, locking her jaw in place and crunching into his collar bone.
On the ground, Daisy didn’t let go. She kept her mouth rigidly shut and shook her head back and forth. There was a wet tearing noise that seemed even louder than the screaming.
I remember thinking that she was ripping him apart.
In the end, my friend was relatively okay. He had to have reconstructive surgery on his shoulder and was in physical therapy for the duration of our high school careers. He walked away with minor nerve damage and a near debilitating fear of dogs. The doctors said he got off lucky.
I’ll never forget the sound of Daisy crunching into his bone, ripping the flesh off of his body with unnatural ease. I couldn’t believe sweet Daisy who loved cuddles and once let a butterfly land on the tip of her nose looked so natural with a mouthful of blood. I thought that she couldn’t hurt a fly, but she nearly eviscerated my friend.
Don’t get me wrong. I still loved Daisy and when she was taken away for aggression testing and my mother told me it was likely she’d be put down, I sobbed for days.
Daisy was my beloved pet and I knew that ultimately she had only tried to protect me from what both she and I had perceived to be a threat.
I was just shocked by what she had done. Or rather, I was shocked by what she was capable of.
And now the sounds I hear from Dave’s bedroom, the sounds that I cannot block out with noise canceling headphones or music… The sounds that permeate my nightmares.
These sounds sound almost exactly like Daisy, ripping the flesh and crunching the bone of a person.
I don’t know if this is some sort of latent PTSD thing. Maybe I’m just now facing the trauma of seeing that much blood and confronting the fear that a much younger me suppressed. Maybe there’s a rational explanation for why I’m so frazzled.
I shouldn’t be able to hear him so clearly. There’s no sound when he has a woman over. I know that the walls, while not soundproof, are capable of blocking most noises. The smack of Dave’s lips as he appreciates a meal shouldn’t be able to reach me.
But it does.
I lay awake each night, headphones around my head, clutching the pillow against them for extra protection, and try to drown out the sound of Dave chewing.
I don’t have anyone to talk to about this. I only have a few friends and if I said this to them, they’d either think I was crazy or petty. Probably both. So I’m just trying to get this off my chest and maybe get some advice from anyone else who couldn’t seem to get over a petty grievance.
Dave’s been talking about renewing the lease. That we ought to stay roommates for another year and I really can’t think of a reason to say no because:
The only thing about Dave is that he chews too loud.