Today's rambling: Apron strings
Written on Wednesday, Dec. 03, 2003 at 9:52 a.m.
while feeling a bit

*sighs*

Well, my roommate WAS excited about the apartment...until she talked to her parents. I swear, if that girl was able to think independently of her parents, she'd probably be dangerous. We'd thought of every downfall of this apartment yesterday, and she was okay with those because the good stuff outweighed the bad. But when her parents brought up the same exact stuff, all of a sudden she was all negative about it!

She pointed out to me (rather tetchily, I might add) that there'd been a $1450 apartment we could have gotten that was closer and in better condition. Yeah, and it was also just like living in another dorm, only off campus. No wonder it was in better condition: we weren't allowed to do anything! No noise after 11 pm, no nailing or pinning things to the walls...Seriously, it was like we weren't even going to be living on our own. Sorry, not interested. It's not that I want to have wild parties or poke big holes in the wall, but I ALSO don't want stupid rules like that. If she wants to live in an off-campus dorm, with a veritable RA and everything, then I should have told her to go.

Ugh.

It's so pathetic how little independence she has. She can't write checks without help, won't get a credit card...which, on the surface, is a good thing. But what if she needs to rent a car, or later in life, get an apartment or a mortgage? Without any kind of credit report, she's going to be screwed. She doesn't even pay her own bills...which is probably why her parents were so adamantly against this place, 'cause it was more expensive. And this girl can't even dub a cassette tape without her father aiding her, so of course she's going to listen implicitly to them.

I'm not saying she SHOULDN'T listen to them. I still listen to my mom. However, I'm also independent enough to be able to do something on my own even if she disapproves. She wasn't at all into the Phi Sigma Pi thing, but I did it anyway because it was something I really wanted. Had Kristen been in the same situation, her parents would only have had to say one thing to her and she'd suddenly be totally against the idea. It's sad, really. Does she think her parents will be there for her forever?

Her parents are strange folks. After living here in the dorms so long, you start to call it home. It's a natural thing, and there's nothing wrong with it. But when Kristen slipped a couple of times back at her real home and called THIS place 'home', her father drew her aside and lectured her about how much that hurt her mother's feelings!

They disapprove of her when she gets anything less than an A+ (I'm not joking, either), they won't let her bring her laundry home to wash it when she comes home on weekends (she has to wash it here and pay money instead)...Can you see where I'm going with this? I might have a father who's won the Ass of the Year award several times, but at least the parent I live with isn't such a Nazi! Maybe Kristen's parents should go hang out with my father. They'd probably get along.

Anyway, I'm going to look into a place that's only for one person. I'm not sure it's available anymore, but I DO NOT want to live in these dorms again next year. It's really starting to get to me.