My Shitty Roommate in My Fourth Place in London (a retrospective)

So this horrible Polish roommate then. First an explanation.

To American readers, you might think that when I say "roommate", I mean "somebody who shares the apartment but obviously has their own room".

No. Thats not how things are done in England. When I say roommate, I mean somebody I shared a ROOM with. A bedroom. People you share the house/apartment with but have separate bedrooms are "flatmates".

And I had three previous roommates before this Polish guy. One was an Italian guy in that shitty place in East London. He was ok, but always had some people from Italy over and some were less than pleasant people. And yeah, it really cramped the tiny shared room even more.

The second was a psycho Brazilian drug addict, also in East London.

The third was this Sri Lankan guy in this shitty place in London. Aside from putting pieces of paper on his laptop, he was actually ok.

But this Polish guy was worse incredible. He just arrived from Poland a couple months earlier. And he was 24 but totally bald. I dont mean he shaved his hair (though later he did). I mean he was bald. Not balding. Bald. The classic horseshoe shaped pattern one finds on, for example, Hulk Hogan.

I mean, Im balding myself but Im almost 30. And Im certainly not totally bald like this guy was.

Anyway, really early male pattern baldness was the least of this guy's problems. He had a degree in IT and was doing some sub-minimum wage job for a Polish company. It was IT work but, again, he was doing it for like four pounds an hour. If that. He ended up quitting.

He was unable to find a job, which, sadly caused him to spend more time at home. And I dont think I was working at the time either. I still hadnt found a job in London. And it was about a year since I moved here.

Let's just get into why this guy was a cock then.

He had no friends so kept asking me to go to pubs with him. I went because I felt sorry for him. But once there, it was boring as hell. And he found it boring as well. Drinking is genuinely dull so this isnt his fault, but he should have found some friends and gone with them instead.

The first example wasnt so bad, but heres where it gets crazy. He would watch films on his laptop when I was clearly watching television.

I mean...I would be sitting there watching tv and he would come in and start watching films on his laptop.

And I dont mean with earphones. Or even with the sound low. I mean full on sound. So loud that I couldnt hear A WORD of what I was watching. He saw absolutely nothing wrong with this. And indeed, he would tell ME to turn the tv down. Eventually, I just turned it off whenever he would do this shit. I ended up buying a Nintendo DS to keep me entertained.

After some time of this, I realized that he was never going to use headphones or show any consideration at all. So I bought headphones so I could listen to the tv. And I moved the tv next to my bed because thats the only way the cord would reach.

He actually complained about this because now he couldnt see the tv. I ended up switching beds with him instead. The other bed was closer to the tv and it was in a position so we could both see it.

He would also regularly ask me to use these headphones when he was studying (he was doing a course he found from the Job Centre which was clearly a scam) or even when he was doing NOTHING. He would be browsing the internet and tell me to use the headphones. He was not doing anything remotely important. He was just a dick.

He would also tell me to use them when he wanted to sleep. I have no problem with this. Totally reasonable. But when I wanted to sleep, he didnt give a fuck. He would watch movies, talk on Skype, listen to the radio, whatever he wanted to do.

This leads to another problem. For the last month or two of him being there, he talked on Skype CONSTANTLY. To some girl from Poland he presumably met from the internet. And he would talk to her virtually all day. Thats not even an exaggeration. Upwards of 16 hours. And well into the evening. One time, I woke up at 4am to this fucking moron yelling on Skype.

One time, I had enough and at like 3am I told him that if he wants to continue talking, he's going to have to go to the kitchen. Totally reasonable request. He should have been doing this from day one. He can easily take his laptop to the kitchen and talk there.

He said "do you see? This is how it is with you and the tv. When Im trying to sleep, I always have to ask you to use the headphones".

I said "no. I dont see." and proceeded to list my grievances. Nothing changed, though.

He was insanely rude when I was trying to sleep but demanded total silence when he was trying to sleep. It was to the point where he didnt even want me using the computer when he was sleeping. The clacking of the keys kept him awake. So he started locking his laptop so I couldnt use it at night.

I ended up buying my own computer then. I actually had to buy my own computer because this was too much of a cock to let me use his. And he used it ALL DAY. Only when he went to sleep was I able to use it. But he didnt want me using it even then because it kept the poor bald baby awake.

So I used mine. I didnt have a wireless thing, though so I had to use a cable to connect to his computer in order to use the internet. He was ok with this for a while (indeed, it was his idea) but soon he decided that I was again typing too loud. I should point out, that I was typing at like 10pm. He didnt like it, because he recently found a really shitty job in a shoe factory or something and had to wake up early.

So he started disconnecting the internet when he went to sleep. I said "are you kidding" and he said "come on! It's my computer!".

I bought a wireless thing then. And used the computer as much as I wanted. He actually started complaining that I was CLICKING too loud. I wasnt even typing. Just CLICKING was too loud for him.

I finally had enough and complained to the leaseholder. He agreed that his behavior was insane, but said to put up with it because this Polish guy was leaving in a week or so.

I mean...just a complete moron. Then he would come back every week or so to collect mail and try to be buddy buddy with me. I gave one sylable replies but he didnt seem to get the message. He couldnt understand why I wanted nothing to do with him. I moved myself about a month later.

Next time: OBNOXIOUS GAY FLATMATE!