I had found the perfect flatmate. She was a Swedish girl, she spoke
other languages fluently, she salsa danced, she was fun to be around
with, we were getting along swimmingly. She was everything anyone
could ask for.
I have lost her, and I'm really bummed out about this. She got mugged
in one of the alleys that leads to my home, one of the few ways to get
home on foot from downtown, and all paths to my place go through an
alley. It's a very long alley too, and there's no way to avoid alleys
to my place unless you take a cab and go all the way around town in a
path that's a hundred times longer than the walking shortcut through
the alleys.
I understand why she moved out, and I can't condemn her for doing so,
but yet, I'm starting to get bitter about the whole affair. I lived in
this house, which is a very nice house, since January, so close to
nine months now. I lived here with Kristen and another couple. Every
day for six months, Kristen and the other girl in here would walk up
the very same alleys where the Swedish girl would walk through, and
nothing ever happened to them. But my Swedish flatmate, my most
awesome and perfect Swedish flatmate, she got mugged in that street
within two weeks of having moved in to my place, so she moved
out. She can't feel safe here, so she found another place that has a
much smaller alley to go through if she wants to go home by foot.
She got mugged at knifepoint at six pm, in broad daylight, a time
during which she thought she would normally be safe. She had her sense
of safety stolen away from her, and I understand this. I understand
why she moved away, but damnit, I can't understand why anyone
else can't move in here instead.
I need a flatmate. I can't pay for this place by myself. It's too
expensive for me alone. I always have been using a cute little
multilingual ad which goes through great lengths to not specify gender
of the flatmate I'm looking for, and honestly I don't care if I live
with a guy or a girl. However, I now feel that I'm morally obligated
to tell anyone who moves here that my ex-flatmate got mugged in the
one alley that leads up to my house, that it's not safe around here,
and in short, that they shouldn't move in with me at all.
I think my ex-flatmate was unlucky, as attested by all the safe trips
that Kristen and the other girl I used to live with. But then it's
once unlucky, forever cursed. My house is cursed, and unfit for
sharing with a girl.
It's not that I particularly want to live with a girl, although I
probably would prefer it, truth be told. I'm quite happy living with a
guy too, but the fact that remains that most of the people who have
ever answered my ad have been girls. If I don't allow girls to live
with me, then I'm cutting out on a large part of the potential market
of people to share a place with, and I'm rather desperate to get a
flatmate now, since my finances aren't going too well
(they're not too bad either, but y'know).
Hence, I'm bitter. I'm bitter that my house is cursed and that I feel
morally obligated to prolong its curse.
I can contextualise a little why I feel this way. I have never felt
unsafe in my life, and I can't relate to anyone else, girls
especially, who feel unsafe, powerless, subjugated to the evils that
someone else may do to them. In a way, I may still be the teenager
that believes himself to be bulletproof. I mean, I can
understand why my Swedish flatmate moved out, but I can't
relate to it. I went with her to find a new place and even
said to her, once we had seen a good one, "if I were you, I'd take
it." I think I was morally obligated to say something like that, that
any suggestiong that she stay in my place despite having lost all
sense of security would be heinous, and I shouldn't even consider
doing so.
Now I don't know what to do. Hence why I'm bitter, angry at the
situation, feeling unable to fix this position in which outrageous
fortune has put me into, and even being a bit of an ass suggesting
that everyone should live in the same reckless fearlessness I am in
myself, for death and mischief may strike at any time, and it's even
pointless to attempt to plan against most of it. I don't believe in
fear, and I'm acting like no one else should either.
I thought writing this would help. It hasn't. I'm still bitter. Maybe
if I sleep on it some more, I will get better. Yeah, I think that's
what I'll do.
Okay, I think I exhausted my anger in dreams. I had angry dreams, but I woke up morally exhausted, glum, and depressed. Step 2 of the recovery plan, I guess, now that Step 1, Anger, is out of the way.
I'll print ads today and put them up tomorrow.