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Curious about an your opinion

Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 1:23 pm
by FauxRaiden
I've got something of a question/opinion for you guys, but I don't think it's really appropriate for the board so I'll ask it here.

Let me tell you a little story, I'll try to be as objective as possible but I'd like your take on it.

So a few years ago I was living in Ventana student housing (near UVU) with my cousin and another roommate. My cousin had been living there long before me and he and this other guy were pretty good roommates/friends whatever. Anyway, I moved in and things were going just fine for a long time.

Well a while down the road my cousin(we'll call him Chuck) had picked himself up a girlfriend. He had previously been single for the entirety of his living at Ventana up until this point. Chuck and girlfriend of course always hung out, she would be at the apartment till the later hours of the night, say roughly 1 AM and what not and they often hung out in his room with the door closed.

Before you think anything, I should say that knowing my cousin as well as I do and knowing that he has no reason nor would he ever lie to me, he wasn't 'sinning'.

Now let's give a little background on our other roommate here. He was roughly 27 at the time, older than us by about 7 years I believe. To my knowledge, he never had a girlfriend, kissed a girl, etc. He didn't have a whole lot in the way of good friends, his father had passed away from cancer a few years before, he was good with the church, but like us he was a bit rough around the edges like not serving a mission, watching R movies and the like.

So when this girlfriend thing started happening, our roommate started getting...offended. He claimed that it was inappropriate for her to be in his room with the door closed and it was making him uncomfortable and he didn't like that she was over late, etc. etc. to the extent that he even called the bishop over one night to uh..bless the apartment or whatever it's called. I should add that up until this point, Chuck had been this roommates(Bob's) crying shoulder for all intents and purposes. Bob would often like to have these late night little uh...cry sessions to Chuck but when the girlfriend came around, that all stopped. Chuck didn't want to stop having his girlfriend over because he thought it was rude of Bob to assume that he was getting dirty in his room, and he felt like he was getting the shaft in his own home. So the girl kept coming, eventually it came to a head when Bob threatened to kick Chuck out of the apartment for whatever reason. They got into a big argument. Bob was aided by these two girls that were his friends, one from across the hall and the other was a girl I was dating. Anyhow, on this night of the argument I had since tried to stay out of the quarrel, not wanting to take sides. This argument night was no different. I stood by and watched the four of them argue it out 3 vs. 1 and more or less tried to keep things from escalating.

Well, I got in trouble by the girls, including the one I was dating. Apparently I should have been defending them...the 3 of them rather than not taking a side. I thought what I did was pretty noble considering I agreed with Chuck, and normally should have sided with him as he's family.

It ended with Chuck and I moving out to avoid further confrontation and having to pretty much get kicked out of our apartment.

I should also note on thing about Bob is that Chuck and I noticed he had been coming into our rooms during the day and while we were sleeping. We don't know why, and we didn't say anything (to prevent further conflict).

I'm just curious what an outside observer thinks. I'm sure there's a lot I'm forgetting so I might add to it as I go along.

Re: Curious about an your opinion

Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 1:56 pm
by NerdGirl
To me it sounds like Chuck wasn't doing anything wrong and Bob is a bit unstable. It seems like he was just jealous of Chuck's girlfriend because she was taking up too much of Chuck's time, so he started throwing out all of this stuff about Chuck doing inappropriate things to try to change the situation. When that didn't work, he got mad and escalated things. Since Chuck wasn't a BYU student, there was nothing wrong with him having his girlfriend in his room. A lot of non-BYU LDS single people I know hang out with their significant other in their rooms because it's the only place they can get some privacy. I know one couple who didn't even kiss until about a month before their wedding day, and they hung out in his room with the door closed all the time. It's possible to that without anything "bad" happening.

I think it's good that you got out when you did, because the situation could have gotten a lot worse. The part about Bob coming into your rooms is pretty creepy.

Re: Curious about an your opinion

Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 2:02 pm
by ahem.
FauxRaiden wrote: Anyhow, on this night of the argument I had since tried to stay out of the quarrel, not wanting to take sides. This argument night was no different. I stood by and watched the four of them argue it out 3 vs. 1 and more or less tried to keep things from escalating.
I think staying out of it / not taking sides is an acceptable course of action.

I think standing by and watching during an argument seems a little more... passive aggressive? And that might have been why your girlfriend took issue. Standing by and not defending her would seem like a sin of omission?

I don't know that I have super strong opinions on this one.

Re: Curious about an your opinion

Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 10:02 pm
by FauxRaiden
ahem. wrote:
FauxRaiden wrote: Anyhow, on this night of the argument I had since tried to stay out of the quarrel, not wanting to take sides. This argument night was no different. I stood by and watched the four of them argue it out 3 vs. 1 and more or less tried to keep things from escalating.
I think staying out of it / not taking sides is an acceptable course of action.

I think standing by and watching during an argument seems a little more... passive aggressive? And that might have been why your girlfriend took issue. Standing by and not defending her would seem like a sin of omission?

I don't know that I have super strong opinions on this one.
Yeah it was kind of an awkward situation. However, it's not like I could have just gone to my room and closed the door. I'm sure I would have been in trouble for that as well. I was just there to make sure nothing came to blows. I just think it was odd that she expected me to jump in and defend her over family in a situation I wasn't involved in (nor she) to begin with.

Re: Curious about an your opinion

Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2010 10:04 pm
by FauxRaiden
NerdGirl wrote:To me it sounds like Chuck wasn't doing anything wrong and Bob is a bit unstable. It seems like he was just jealous of Chuck's girlfriend because she was taking up too much of Chuck's time, so he started throwing out all of this stuff about Chuck doing inappropriate things to try to change the situation. When that didn't work, he got mad and escalated things. Since Chuck wasn't a BYU student, there was nothing wrong with him having his girlfriend in his room. A lot of non-BYU LDS single people I know hang out with their significant other in their rooms because it's the only place they can get some privacy. I know one couple who didn't even kiss until about a month before their wedding day, and they hung out in his room with the door closed all the time. It's possible to that without anything "bad" happening.

I think it's good that you got out when you did, because the situation could have gotten a lot worse. The part about Bob coming into your rooms is pretty creepy.
Yeah that's what I was thinking when this whole ordeal was going down. The way I figured, Bob was just offended that Chuck was no longer spending any time with him and decided to take his revenge passive-aggressively. I only ask because Bob started talking to me again recently and I wondered if it would really be even worth the trouble. I'm a nice guy and everything, but there's some seriously bad blood between us these days.