While her loft was finished first, it seemed to lack every sense of flair or functionality.
The dimensions were dictated largely by the wood�s raw length, rendering a design that straddled the line between utilitarian and primitive. Neglecting the intrusion of the natural gas and sprinkler feed pipes that hung down from the ceiling, the clearance inside the loft amounted to a meager four and a half feet, effectively turning her new bedroom into a crawlspace.
As a final stroke of genius, she omitted the existence of any kind of ladder or stair to get up into the loft, apparently in hopes that our landlord would lend us his stepladder in perpetuity.
Over the course of the week, it was slowly becoming apparent how the roommate's personality was marked by a pattern of imposition. Like any other leach or parasite, relationships to her were important only in the context of their material advantages, and her modus operandi was to impose upon the generosity of others until she eventually bleed them dry.
In her mind, she could just keep borrowing the landlord�s ladder until his patience was exhausted, and that would be easier then solving the problem for herself.
A classic user.
For this kind of person, friendships have a built-in terminus and all their relationships exist under the predication of the partner�s endurance or ignorance. It is a life of emotional migration, where the exhaustion of an existing friend necessitates the cultivation of a new relationship. Fitting the pattern, she seemed to have an increasing list of enemies while her friends were consistently scarce.
�Hey. You know, if you want, you could use my bed frame when you get your mattress up here.�
Like a self-styled Machiavelli, the Ruemate assumed that she needed to manipulate people into doing her bidding, but her intentions were as transparent as Evian. While she was pawning the idea of me using her bed frame as one of spontaneous generosity, we both knew that she couldn't fit it up in her loft without bashing her head against the ceiling every time she woke up. Thus, by offering me the use of her bed platform, she could effectively alleviate herself of the problem of its disposal.
Since I was incorporating more headroom into my loft design, I accepted.
What's interesting to see, if one ever takes the time to notice, is how your own personality will mold to fit another's. How you must meet a mutual agreement of behavior that incorporates elements of your inherent core while accommodating the personality traits of the other. It's give and take with any relationship, but what defines it is how much you're willing to give and how much the other will take.
As I'm attending to some other matter, the Ruemate goes over to remove her mattress from the bed frame, but she returns a few moments later with an embarrassed look on her face and a purple ribbed jelly dildo in her hand.
"Isn't this funny? I got this as a gag gift at a bachelorette party."
She tosses the vibrator into a bag of trash with forced lightheartedness, then tries to muscle her mattress up into her loft.
The Ruemate and I were developing a system, an agreement of behavior. She would lie about anything and everything and I would agree not to care or point out her problem. I just wanted a place to live, I didn�t want to become her friend or emotional confidant, and so I decided to allow her to lie to me in any way that she saw fit.
Rather then sit there an analyze what�s in a pile of dogshit, I am content to step over it and continue on my way.
While they�re generally brushed off as a sort of social leper, pathological liars typically have a long history of emotional and mental illnesses. Like the classic web of lies, the untruths they tell form a network of false history that soon defines their person. One lie stacks on top of another, relating to an older lie that is linked to a whole series of fantasies. Subconsciously, they hope to wrap themselves in ever-distorted revisions with each new lie re-enforcing an older lie until the truth about themselves is rewritten, but in reality they lock themselves unto a pattern of dishonesty in order to maintain their facade. While they may seek to invent a self who is more to their liking, the person they�re inventing becomes secondary to the problem they�ve adopted.
It was apparent to me that when she went to move her mattress, she discovered a forgotten sex-toy in the process. But what is baffling, and further illustrates the borderline mental divergence effective in compulsive lying, is how she handled the problem she was presented with. Rather then simply hiding the dildo or disposing of it surreptitiously, she brought the thing to my direct attention and then fabricated a lie to explain it away.
While it was obvious that this was her personal vibrator, and ownership implying use, further apparent that she enjoys the occasional use of a sex toy, she masked whatever shame or embarrassment she was feeling with an implausible lie.
And since I offered neither care nor concern over the incident, I�m sure she decided that her deception was flawless, and thus a new page was added to her history all about that time she got that wacky gag gift at that random bachelorette party.
As she was trying to shove her mattress up into her loft, I went over to move my new bed platform, taking note of the greasy dildo-shaped stain beneath where her mattress was lying.
