I’m sure a lot of you will hear just Scott’s side of the story and think badly of me for what happened. I’m here to tell you that I don’t care if you think badly of me. Life will go on. Things will get resolved, one way or another.
I abruptly moved out of my apartment Saturday after quietly absorbing and dealing with all of the crap that I’ve taken over the course of the past few months. I pretty much knew that this was going to happen eventually after I returned from my trip to NY back in July. When the roles were reversed and I was actually doing a lot better than I am now, financially, I went out of my way to make sure that we had plenty to eat and drink in the apartment. We had plenty of food for quite a while and there wasn’t any of this “every man for himself” I’m gonna go get some food, but eff you, you can have a box of noodles garbage that’s been going on for a while now.
Scott, on a regular basis, would also do what he calls “joking” with people. Where he looks for, finds, and pushes every button he can in order to get under your skin. And he quite often takes things too far. Way too far. Far enough where a “STFU” would’ve been warranted well before where he finally stops. This is anything from calling Jessica (his fiancee) a bitch for no reason (none of you can ever understand how much that kind of thing pisses me off) to literally starting fights with people for no reason, sometimes in the presence of other people.
If he ever doesn’t get his way, he throws the biggest fit of just about anyone I’ve ever seen in my life. Throwing things, calling people “gay” or “fag” or whatever. He’s often like a ticking time bomb and will explode on anyone, regardless of whether they’re related to whatever his current problem is, regardless of whether what he’s exploding about is even something worth getting that worked up about. I’ve been told that I have anger problems, but I can noticeably keep my anger in far better check than he can.
But, back to the groceries issue. This is the real meat of why I left. The other stuff is small potatoes compared to this. I have actually lost weight over the past couple of months, due to his inability to properly stock the apartment with food, even when he has money. I’ve never complained about buying groceries when I did, but there was no reciprocation. Whenever a trip to the store was made, the amount of food that actually came into the apartment was just enough for one, maybe two meals and then we were back to this “everyone for themselves” crap where they would often just bring fast food home without even thinking of me.
I don’t even want to hear any of the “money is tight” arguments, because that is complete and absolute horsecrap. Scott has had plenty of money to buy an Xbox, a $125 phone, and he and Jessica have eaten out at countless places. Where are the freaking groceries? I went above and beyond when the two of them were seriously tight on money, when Scott quit his job working at Planet for a while, but nobody seems to give a crap about that when the roles are reversed.
Now, this type of a rant wouldn’t be right without a reflection on what I personally did wrong. It was brought up during our conversation this evening, yes I could’ve taken on a part-time job to help with the food myself as well as bills. There were three reasons that I didn’t. For starters, I was so irritated that there still hadn’t been a proper groceries contribution that I wasn’t willing to go spend money on food just to have it be eaten without any thanks or acknowledgement. Second, I forgot that Scott knew the manager of the place across the street, which would’ve been an extremely convenient place to work and would’ve interfered with my other obligations the least. Third, there’s a lot more to what I do than just programming. This isn’t just some thing where we do little programming tasks for people, this is a full-fledged business. And one that I have to manage alone, currently. This includes the majority of all customer interaction that needs to occur during business hours. Just because you don’t know what I’m doing (if it’s not programming), doesn’t mean that I’m not doing anything. For homework, look up the term “sweat equity”.
Also, the way that I just abruptly took off wasn’t really a good idea. The reason this happened the way that it did was because something inside me had snapped the previous evening. Knowing that I didn’t have any money and that there was no food in the apartment, Scott looked dead at me and asked “What are you eating this weekend?” Well, what do you think there, chuckles?
I believe that the way the rent structure and “separate living spaces” arrangements that the apartment complex set forth have a lot to do with it, psychologically. Because most things were entirely separate, it encouraged the “every man for himself” mentality that was often seen. Scott not paying his rent wouldn’t affect me, and me not paying mine wouldn’t affect him. Except, that it does. Scott wouldn’t physically get evicted if I didn’t pay my rent, but it does put a strain on him financially, now that I’m gone.
He apparently was under the assumption that I was trying to just get out of my financial obligations, though. To the point where he shut my phone off (I was on his family plan, because it was cheaper for all of us), though I believe he did that mostly because he was angry. I sent him text messages during the day Saturday while I was trying to work out how much I owed for this month, for the sole reason that I intended on getting him what he needed to try and ease the financial strain on him. Granted, he didn’t know that, which is why he’s pissed, thus going back to it being a bad idea for me to have left so abruptly. It’ll be annoying not having the phone number that all of my business contacts have for me anymore, but I guess that was his way of getting back at me for “screwing him” as he put it.
Maybe when he calms down he’ll realize that I’m not trying to screw him. I just want to freaking eat. And I couldn’t do that there, so I left. If you made it this far, there’s one last thing that I want to say.
I love Scott like a brother. He’s family and I know that I hurt him because of the way things went, but no matter what I did to try and make him aware of when he either took things too far (and hurt peoples’ feelings, not just mine) or was inconsiderate about things like food, it didn’t change things. I started storing those feelings up and not showing them until it finally got to one critical moment and I just snapped. I’m sorry people got hurt, but I have feelings too. And a stomach. One that especially needs to be filled, because I already look sickly enough as it is.
That’s what all of this boils down to. Nothing else I tried worked, so I had to do something that was absolutely sure to get everyone’s attention. I’m not out to screw anyone, and I want to make sure that those who need the help, get it. I just couldn’t live in the conditions where someone kept “playing” and taking things too far and I only ever got a real meal once a week, sometimes less than that.
