Roommates
Where did these 2 women come from? I live alone with my wife and 17-year-old daughter. I say alone because it’s now two against one. Since my son left for college, in all crucial matters at home, I am now in the minority. In a matter of minutes, I went from living as a family of four to an awkward feeling I am sharing space with roommates that I barely know. How could that happen? I thought everything would be fine and dandy. How different could things really be with my son gone? Something happened on the way to “Perfectville”. I had forgotten a very basic law of chemistry. If you remove 1 element from a compound the entire bond is forever altered. So removing my son from the equation was no small matter (pun intended). For the first time ever, I question why I never took chemistry in high school.
Before my son’s departure, I had given little thought to our new family dynamic. My daughter is always busy and on the go. She’s active at school, has a broad group of friends and babysits all the time. My wife is busy too. She is still a devoted Mom, 100% focused on her daughter. She has two side gigs earning money, works out regularly, and volunteers all over the place. She and I would definitely have more alone time together and that was appealing. Together the three of us would create a new normal.
Rewind to 1992. I was 25, living in Manhattan Beach. I shared a killer, 4 bedroom house with buddies. Our house was 2 blocks from the Pacific Ocean. I had exactly zero worries in the world. Whenever we needed a new roommate there were a few simple questions.
1) Did you have a job and could you pay the rent?
2) Did you bring a big screen TV or killer stereo system to the table?
3) Did you like playing beach volleyball and going to bars at night?
That was it. Period. It usually took 24 hours to find a suitable candidate. I suppose the private rooftop deck with ocean views didn’t hurt. Sadly, my current roomies don’t have any of those credentials. More sadly, I no longer have that beach house.
Conversely, if my wife and daughter needed a new roommate today, their application would look starkly different.
1) Do you watch The Bachelor?
2) Do you watch that wedding dress show?
3) Do you shop online and have clothes arrive in the mail daily?
4) Does the month of December mean nonstop Hallmark movies?
5) Have you watched the entire Gilmore Girls series?
6) Most importantly, are you active on at least 3 different social media platforms?
Sadly, I don’t meet any of their criteria either. There is certainly no obligation or expectation that you will share common interests with roommates. It is by definition a living arrangement. Most days are spent apart and any time together is generally at night or on the weekends. But it is nice if the people you share space with enjoy the same passions.
My roommates are wonderful women and I am very fond of them. It just happens that they both reside on Instagram and Snapchat. My daughter is also active on Tik Tok and has a secondary Instagram account that Dad is forbidden to see. My wife occasionally visits my ancient world of Facebook but only for a short while. We can go 30-45 minutes before and/or after dinner with no communication at all. Silence.
Their latest obsession is using various filters within Snapchat to alter photos. They can do all sorts of crazy things like changing facial features, adding eye patches and funny hats or changing hairstyles. They can distort your face into fat or skinny, tall or short. They modify eye colors, add bunny ears or even have lizard tongues pop out. They do all sorts of crazy stuff. The only limit is their imagination. My wife’s new favorite is to have a very real looking tarantula crawl across your face and head. She did this on my photo recently and I jumped back from the couch and banged my head on the window ledge. My wife laughed hysterically. “It’s super fun, isn’t it”? They literally could spend hours doing this and I must confess, it is usually pretty funny.
My roomies watch all the same shows, research the same travel websites for exotic trips and chat non-stop about senior year in high school. My wife knows more about the social scene at Jesuit than half of the darn student body. It’s as if she is an oracle looking down at the world she left 35 years ago. I guess once a teenage girl, always a teenage girl. I keep picturing my wife as a female version of the cop from Terminator 2. She calmly morphs into a 17-year-old girl at a moment’s notice with all the requisite mannerisms and knowledge. For what it’s worth, I’d love to be a clueless 17-year-old again but it wouldn’t be materially different than me at 52. I guess I hit my ceiling early. Whatever the girls do, I still stop and look. I turn my head around slowly, searching for my wingman and the requisite head nod. Sadly, he’s left the building. It helps me to know that my wife is a fantastic mother. She excels in the foreign and complex world of teenage girls. She and my daughter enjoy an amazing connection which is awesome.
But where does all of this leave a 52-year-old, graying Dad?
Most days I feel a bit like Mr. Roper from Three’s Company. Translation, I feel old, a bit agitated and out of touch. And on Mondays, for seemingly 32 weeks out of the year, it leaves me in the heart of Bachelor Nation. It’s the most frightening land I have ever visited. It’s like Hotel California in that “you can never leave” but that’s all I ever want to do. Like immediately. They should call it Slutville. It teaches all the wrong lessons, promotes sex and hooking up with strangers. It values appearance above character and provides no redeeming value. It’s clearly a scripted show (clear to me anyway) that acts as an audition for vacuous young ladies and men seeking fame. And these are not the brightest bulbs in the box. They aren’t trying to “earn” fame for having any visible skills or mastery of a certain subject. They just need to be attractive and willing to make out (and beyond) with 20+ guys/girls over a 90-day period. I think it’s 90 days but I’m so numb by the end, I can’t remember. The Bachelor/Bachelorette always falls deeply in love with 3 different girls/guys at the same time. Mind you, they have known each other for all of 37 minutes. Tears usually flow and the “contestants” (ie. actors) are always shocked to find themselves so conflicted. I could go on and on about the misery that is the Bachelor but I will save you the torment. I hate it. My roommates love it. I endure it just so I can spend time with them. My son has somehow turned this nightmare into a positive. (1)
The good news is that I really do enjoy my new living arrangement. I enjoy dining with them at home and out at restaurants. I am constantly spoiled by their terrific culinary skills. My daughter and I cherish our sushi date nights and I still get fringe benefits from my other roomie. Together we binge-watch a few TV series and my daughter and I just started Breaking Bad! We even go to the Tulip and Dahlia festivals together.
Best of all, my roommates both love football. We don’t watch as often as my son and I did but they do watch and rarely complain. My wife has always enjoyed football and often asks questions at an expert level.
Wife: “Didn’t the left tackle for the Steelers go to Ohio State?
Me: “Uh, uh…who? I’m not sure…maybe?”.
Wife: “I’m pretty sure he did.”
Many times, I have no idea where they played in college. She is correct 87% of the time. More recently we shared this exchange before she headed out to a last-minute pedicure.
Wife: “Honey can you please tape the rest of the Heisman Trophy ceremony?
Me: “Huh, uh sure, I guess. Can I ask why?
Wife: Without missing a beat “In case there’s a good speech.”
You can’t make this stuff up. How many wives in the history of the world have asked their hubby to tape the Heisman ceremony?
Likewise, I will never forget years ago when my daughter was maybe 7. We were watching a random game on a Saturday afternoon. The field goal attempt was botched and the kick sailed wide. My daughter calmly said. “Daddy, that wasn’t the kicker’s fault, it was a bad snap”. A 7-year-old GIRL explaining to her father what had happened using inside football terminology. That is priceless.
So it’s not all gloom and doom. It turns out my son left me in pretty good hands. I get to live with 2 of my favorite people on the planet and while we share very different interests we are still pretty compatible.
I just need to find something else to do on Mondays.
(1) My son and his buddies now host 8-10 girls every week for Bachelor Monday. Appointment TV with sorority girls and some rosé. That’s my boy!