We have here in Madison extensive neighborhoods of student houses. Not housing, but houses. With a house, as with an apartment, comes the issue of how clean the public areas are going to be. The house could be a pit filled with crap or an Arcadian expanse of foot-placing area, a grime mine or a hospital, a flop-house or a monastery. Roommates don't always agree on the issue and tension ensues.
The issue never seems to get permanently solved when it's in an arena of battle housing the sloppy and the neat. Different policies are instituted and dissolved. People's attitudes change due to stress levels, dating situations and chemical consumption, but the general attitude of each person remains the same. So when a clean house goes to hell during spring break, the neatniks get restless with a quickness, but when a general backslide into dirtiness happens, there will be a reckoning. That time is now, and the place is here.
There was a time, last year, and a place, on the other side of town, when I lived without fear of a reckoning. I was a relatively sloppy boy living with two very clean girls and another sloppy boy. For some reason this was perfect for me. Things would get dirty, I would get yelled at, roll my eyes, and clean it. The other man of the house would not always do the cleaning. This led to me being somewhat favored in the realm of cleaning politics. The key to being favored was that I got to gripe along with them sometimes, something I have never been able to do before or since when speaking of cleaning.
My love of griping soon led me to seek maintenance of this wonderful inclusion. Two boys and two girls can begin to be lumped together according to sex when they live together. Then they get distinguished by certain traits, such as \the one who sleeps here."" I soon became the one who cleaned the hair out of the drain-screen every time.
Now a house filled with people of the same sex can get much uglier. The sides aren't as clear. There are varying degrees of sloppiness, but there are no varying degrees of having a penis or a vagina. Alliances are vague and un-acknowledged. People get more angry at platonic friends of the same sex than those of the opposite sex and are much less likely to appease, so instead of straight demands, they make insinuations, leave notes and mumble snippy comments to a fork with the target in hearing range. Tension mounts. A house meeting will be called. The words ""I feel like"" will be uttered by men and women alike in order to distance themselves from the rage. The house will be cleaned one time.
What happens now? Unless there is full cooperation and immediate correction, it will happen all over again.
Now what happens when there is not just friendship, but sex involved? What if one person is a pig and the other a neat freak, but they are both freak-ay? Since I am about to be in a house with a clean floor, I will stand in socks and awe at the thought of couples who are incompatible roommates but make it work anyway, if that does indeed happen.
