I think Fate either fancies me, or she has a wicked and
cruel sense of humour. Finding house mates is never an easy task. Either no one
calls, or the people that do, spend the initial interview talking about their
knife collection and how they perfected their stabbing technique. Two friendly
and out going English girls in JJ and Rosie had agreed to take Shane's room,
leaving one room to be filled. Laura hurriedly put up sterile signs advertising
a room in Dumpsville with faceless clones and surprisingly no one called. We
combined my sign writing skills with Laura's flair for painting the worst
things in a positive light and came up with slightly more appealing
advertisements.
Unfortunately they yielded little result until Kristen (USA)
and Tuisku (FIN) convinced us they weren't the couple we were looking for, but
nice enough to have in anyway. Alarm bells were chiming pleasantly in my ear at
the thought of living with 5 women. One week of the month could be a veritable
mine field given women's propensity to bring each others cycles into sync. The
rest of the time could be informative and mildly titillating in polite and
appropriate ways.
Before getting the chance to bask in such possibilities,
Laura invited her best friend from Ireland to come stay as well. Of course she
was female, and Laura's inclination to see the absolute best in serial killers
had me concerned that her friend could ignite the powder keg that was building
before my eyes. Not only was I losing the room I had enjoyed on my own since
moving in, I would be sharing with two Irish girls. One an angel, a best friend
and faultless in the eyes of God and myself. Except perhaps for her judgement
of character. The other an unknown quantity, highly regarded but tainted by
dubious stories of a tendency to either flirt or fight.
Alarm bells started howling like a nuclear attack was
imminent when my English bed bunny got the boot from her hostel. That her and
her friend were evicted for turning their room into a wardrobe massacre filled
me with as much dread as the prospect of living with 8 females did. Stunned
looks and envious scowls greet me every time I tell another male about my
predicament. Obviously they have never been part of the vast minority in an
oestrogen factory like this. Unfortunately I am not treated like the last
functioning penis on a deserted island and instead routinely find myself being
blamed for every crime mankind has ever inflicted upon these girls. Not that
these crimes exclude the possibility of repeating the pattern, seeing that a
woman's libidos is just as healthy as a man's. Discussions about picking up
seem to exclude the opinion of the one male living here, so I have to sit idly
by as the one gender tries to find ways to get laid without revealing any
neurotic dispositions to the other gender. That is when they are not rifling
through each others wardrobes, randomly rearranging anything I placed in any
semblance of order, or aiming to derive sustenance solely from chocolate.
These 8 girls I thought were nice, stable and relatively
rational until we all watched 'He's just not that into you' together. Seeing
them all nod in agreement with every neurotic and irrational thing the lead
character did convinced me they had all done such things themselves before. And
would probably not be too concerned about doing them again. That could have
resulted in an instant conversion to homosexuality had I not been able to
escape to the sanctuary of the tent outside.
“Why is there a tent outside?” you may be asking while
cringing in light of the most obvious answer. Too many times already have I've
had the displeasure of coitus interruptus in the relative privacy of my own
home. Even more so than the discreet intimate moments shared in the hostel like
a teenager in the bathroom with overly sensitive ears tuned to approaching
footsteps. With 2 of the 3 bedrooms covered wall to wall with mattresses, and
some of the room mates snoring like midnight yodelling is their favourite past
time, I decided to move my base of operations out into the tent. Ultimately,
you can only spend so much time covertly spying on the enemy before refuge is
needed to tinker with an engine, watch the footy, nonchalantly scratch your
balls, or fulfil some sort of handy man duty.
Group conversations have only furthered my belief that males
and females are two completely different species and any conclusions I draw
will be harshly criticised by those that don't share my dangling appendage
anatomy. I could accept that if I was confident all arguments would be firmly
based in rational thinking. Unfortunately that forms part of the first
conclusion I ever made about women. 'All men are bastards' is a common refrain
in this house, so forgive me for deriving perverse pleasure out of living up to
that claim. Instead of apologising, I think I'll just go and fix something.
