"Thanks dude! I really appreciate that!"

Alexander Hsu
Linguistics 12
Paper #2
4th Draft
1613 words



“Thanks dude! I really appreciate that!”



“Thanks dude! I really appreciate that!” I have heard him say those words so many times that I have already lost track of how many times Ms. Roommate has been sleeping in my room. “Oh! Hey! Alex! Do you mind if Ms. Roommate stays over for a night?” How was I supposed to say no to that when it was already three o’clock in the morning? I don’t get it! How can he continuously do such terrible and disgusting things?

By him, I mean Mr. Roommate, who is currently my kind and beloved roommate. Actually, I have always believed that I am a really generous person and I seldom get angry at anything until I had met this one person. I don’t know, but just writing this paper makes me angry; at the same time, it releases my anger.

“Oh ya dude! I have a girlfriend and will it be okay that we sometimes have some private time?” I don’t know how a typical American roommate would answer this question but I don’t see what is wrong with saying “yes” when it’s the first day of school, when friendship and all other things occur. In fact, I have had a great roommate in summer who I still keep in contact with so I anticipated that this one would also be a nice guy. However, if I had known that one single “okay” would ruin my entire freshmen life, I would never have said that, nor would I have treated Mr. Roommate to my precious root beer which I kept in a secret stash. But reality is often cruel. “Cool! I will put a ribbon in front of the doorknob when we are having private time.”

Ribbons. Till now it is still one of my least favorite words started from that moment. It is the word which my friends usually use to make fun of me. One particular memory that will always stay with me, unless I also forget my birthday, happened on the second Tuesday after school started. It was 12:30am and I just got back from my friends’ house. I had a quiz on the next morning and what I usually do is to study before I go to bed. However, I saw a pink ribbon blatantly hanging on my doorknob. I remembered I went to the lounge just beside my room and did nothing but wait. I didn’t knock because I didn’t want to be so rude as to interrupt anything particularly when it might be two people having sex. But as time slowly passed by, my thoughts were struggling with that decision. When I saw that the minute hand of my watch had reached six again, I sent Mr. Roommate a text message, politely stating the fact that I have a quiz the next day and that it’s 1:30am and I haven’t even showered. After twenty minutes, he let me in and explained that he forgot to remove the ribbon. His tone might have seemed really sincere to him but to me it was fake and fallacious.

Similar events have happened countless times. At least one ribbon was used each day and the only reason I might not have seen one on a particular day would just be dumb luck: they had sex while I was in class. In fact, the Roommate couple never bothered to memorize my class schedule. Instead they had sex whenever they wanted. By whenever, I mean from 6 in the morning to 3 in the morning. I have forgotten how many times I was interrupted from my dreams by Ms. Roommate’s frequent moaning coupled with lingering pauses. It was really bothersome when my whole day was wasted by that because I had planned to sleep to eleven after going to bed really late the night before. So many times I have seen them completely naked on the bed. Please! I am not interested in seeing testicles or fat bodies. Sometimes I just wonder, when you are in this country that is well-known for its freedom, does that mean that you can sleep around and ruin other peoples’ life?（其實我這邊一開始是用fuck around的。老師說不好。）

The primary reason I chose Computer Science as my major was that I don’t need to deal with problems regarding peoples’ relationship and communication. Communicating and maintaining relationships are not like a math formula that I can nail down easily or a scientific theorem that will lie still for me to examine, but they are more like a headache to me. Communication with people is just way too troublesome. But great! Look where I have found myself in the first year of college: stuck with a roommate who I definitely need to communicate with a lot.

I finally sent him a really long text message concerning my discomfort about the ribbon thing and them having sex when I am in the room. I also remembered before sending the text message, I spent one hour editing the text so that it wouldn’t be offensive. “Fuck” was changed into “make love” but what I really meant was “fuck”.（据老師說這個fuck就用的很好。） I even got advice from my irresponsible RA that I shouldn’t use “you” too much as it would sound like I am blaming him. Neither could I use too many “I”s as it would sound too self-centered. That was actually the second time I have sent such text messages to him as he ignored the first one. Guess what? I have got the same old answer from the first time. “Oh! I’m so sorry dude! I feel so bad doing such terrible things to you! Are we still cool?” “Yeah……” My ass.

Like the thoughts of my roommate, I don’t get a lot of American culture even though I was born here. A week ago, I read this article in the Daily Nexus (an independent student newspaper of the University of California, Santa Barbara) named “This V-Day, Try a Three-way.” At first the author talked about how her ex-boyfriends wanted to do a threesome but she rejected the idea. “Threesomes go against everything her child-rearing ancestors have trained her to believe.” Yeah of course! But then she started to talk about how her current boyfriend finally persuaded her to do a threesome with another girl, and what’s the most unbelievable thing to me was that she even invited other people to join her and her boyfriend to do such a thing. What is wrong with this world? Do people really take sex so lightly here? One other thing that reminded me of that is the sex scenes in Hollywood movies. Even PG-13 movies have erotic sex scene starring as the protagonists. I don’t know, is sex as common as eating breakfast? Maybe over here it is, looking at my two passionate roommates.

True, I have never seen the ribbons since then, but now it is worse. The Roommate couples just have sex without the ribbons. Recently, I often accidentally see them having sex when I get back to my room even when it’s in the afternoons. One month ago, when I got back to my room at 3 in the afternoon, I was disgusted by what I saw. The first thing in sight was Ms. Roommate, who was using the computer and wearing absolutely nothing. Yes, indeed, nothing. She didn’t seem to have noticed me as she didn’t even turn her head. Only did she realize only after I got to my side of the room did she realize I was there. She’s like “oh oh sorry! I thought you were Mr. Roommate!” What? That’s why you can stay naked in our room? And it’s 3 o’clock! What surprised me even more was that Mr. Roommate didn’t even talk to me about that incident, not saying something like “I’m sorry.” I don’t know. The one thing I know is that I would definitely not accept this kind of girl as a girlfriend, nor would I take that really inconsiderate person as a boyfriend if I were a girl. Forgive me for saying that but that’s what I am thinking right now.

Why? How can the difference between the values of two people with similar age and coming to the same college be so big? I don’t understand my roommate. I don’t understand what’s in his mind when he’s having sex when other people are around. Perhaps it gives him more pleasure? Sometimes I would just blame everything on the cultural differences between two countries. “Yeah. What you expect? They Americans are like that la.” That’s what my Taiwanese cousin told me. Meanwhile, my mom said, “Americans are different, ok? You need to tell him directly. Tell him ‘No! You can’t bring your girlfriend back!’Next time I’ll just sleep in your room for months and see his response.” But deep in my heart, I know that even though culture might be one of the factors, it’s not the thing to blame as it’s just him. I am sure there are Taiwanese who are like him just that I have not yet encountered them.

The double room I paid for have seemed like a triple room from the start. I don’t know. Where’s my right as an individual? Where’s my freedom as an American citizen? I see neither of them. It seems to me that he has all the rights and I have nothing. I know that a primary reason is because I didn’t show him a strong attitude at first. But why, after two long and extremely well thought-out text messages and a session of serious talk, can they still do that? I mean, looking at the high criteria to enter UCSB, they should be educated, right? They should know the rights and the wrongs, right?