On Monday evening, I was sitting at home when a knock came at the front door. I wasn't expecting anyone, so I was surprised to have a visitor. As I headed for the door, Samuel, who had been on the phone in his room, told me that the missionaries had come by for a visit. I immediately became furious at him.
I should probably explain that I was in my pajamas and was in no way dressed to have anyone over. Additionally, I had made it very to clear to Samuel that while he was certainly allowed to have visitors over, he simply needed to give me fair warning so I knew what to expect. Too mad and underdressed to deal with the situation, I went to my room for the duration of the visit.
After the missionaries left, I came out of my room, still angry. Samuel apologized, but I was in no mood for something so simple. To me, it seemed that Samuel was once again being a terrible roommate: it's his responsibility to request his share of the rent from the Bishop, but I always end up doing it; I've pointed out the need for a clean kitchen, but I almost always have something to clean up before I can start cooking; and he doesn't always remember to flush. All of these things were annoyances, but now that I'm looking for work again, my stress levels are much higher and his failings as a roommate are much harder to ignore.
As it turned out, the Elders came by because one of them is being transferred and wanted to say good-bye. Samuel had only found out that they were headed over a few minutes before, but, once again, he failed to live up to his end of things. He was on the phone with someone else and, rather than end the call so that he could give me a heads-up, he continued to talk. When the knock came, he was surprised that they wanted to come in since he was planning to meet them in the parking lot - and why would I need to know if no one was coming inside?
The problem with his line of thinking is that he made a lot of assumptions: he assumed that the Elders would call rather than knock on our door (one of our neighbors must have been coming in and held open the building door for them), he assumed that one of the Elders wouldn't ask to use the restroom, and he assumed that his phone call would wrap up before the Elders arrived. We all make assumptions, but Samuel is still learning his way around American culture, so he's applying Nigerian assumptions to American behavior and that's a recipe for disaster, like the one we had Monday evening.
Once the Elders left, I tried talking to Samuel about what happened. I accepted the fact that he didn't intend for things to go the way that they did, but I was still angry. While intentions do matter, they don't outweigh actual consequences to our actions. I told him that all I really wanted was communication and even if he only knew the missionaries were coming by five minutes before they arrived, that's still five more minutes of prep time than I got. I could have gone on for several more minutes, but even though my anger was justified, the level of anger I felt was not. I was in an agitated state because of other factors and Samuel didn't deserve all of that. I cut myself from chewing him our and went back to my room where I was too riled up to be able fall asleep for several more hours.
The next day, I apologized for how I reacted, but reiterated that he needs to warn me when guest are coming by. He apologized again and said he would try to do better.
If I'm being perfectly honest, I'm really looking forward to the time when Samuel's family is able to make it to the US and they can be reunited. And while I want him to be with his family again, I'm at least equally anticipating the fact that he'll be out of my apartment. Sometimes friendship do better with a little more distance between the parties and I think that will be true for the two of us.
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