On Cinco de Mayo, one of neighbors got really drunk, staggered out into the street and began to shout a list of specific grievances to his housemates. Since I couldn’t sleep anyhow (he woke me up at 1:55 in the morning with his shrieking, bellowing and sidewalk stomping), I took out a pen and wrote down his rantings, verbatim.
Here is his list of grievances:
1. His friends are insensitive to his needs.
2. His friends (male as well as female) refuse to touch him in affectionate ways. He was especially concerned that his housemates touch each other’s knees during conversations but rarely if ever touch him on the knee. In fact he cannot remember “one freaking time” when they’ve touched him on the knee.
3. His friends rarely hug him.
3. He has low self-esteem. His friends are responsible for his lack of self esteem. The lack of knee-touching and hugs makes it worse. If his friends would only massage his knees on a regular basis, he would feel good about himself.
4. His friends do not understand him.
5. On certain occasions they will do “fun things” without alerting him to their plans. Then, when he’ll find out about the fun plans, they will lie about it and cover it all up. “You make it seem like you’ve assembled spontaneously, when in reality, you’ve planned ahead and gone somewhere and never told me.”
I hope my neighbor gets the comfort and knee-petting that he craves. I’ll upload an illustration soon.