My boyfriend was planning on doing a summer internship in another city that was pretty expensive. It was hard to find short term housing and he didn’t know anyone.
Luckily, I knew a few people in the city so I reached out to them, explaining the situation. One of my friends said he was welcome to sleep on her couch for the summer, and the other one said that she could put a partition up in part of the living room so he could have sort of a fake room for the summer. I was so excited that I found a solution for him, and that my friends were being so gracious. I would not want to burden anyone for that summer, so I figured he could spend a few weeks and one friends place, and another few weeks at the other friends place, and maybe he could find a short sublet on craigslist or something.
I told my boyfriend; I was so happy that I could help him out and his first response was that it wouldn’t work out. I asked him why not, and he said “I need my own room.” Ok–but they are letting you crash for free, and it’s just temporary. Let me also reiterate that the city he was temporarily moving to was very expensive. It’s hard enough to find temporary housing as it is, and he was on a budget. He also said he would prefer his own bathroom and his own closet. Yeah, so would most people, but this is one summer (so temporary), and it’s not costing him anything. I could not believe how high maintenance he was being, when most people on a budget would jump at this opportunity.
The fact that he would prefer to spend a lot of time and money to find his own room, own bathroom and own closet for two months in a city where he does not know anyone was such a turn off. I was also hurt that he rejected my solution so quickly and didn’t even recognized that I had reached out to people and really tried to make it work for him.