The love triangle...er square... pentagon, whatever (Part One)

Aside from the normal concerns I deal with on a day to day basis, occasionally I am faced with the burden of tenants' relationships amongst themselves. They do not complain to me about their dealings with those on the outside world, but for some reason if it is another tenant they feel I should be the moderator. On more than one occasion I have told a tenant that I am not running a club house, that this is in fact an apartment complex. I remind them that they are adults. Therefore, if they are not getting along with someone, they need to either stay away from them or figure out a resolution.

One tenant was notorious for this. She had a coarse personality and could not get along with anyone. She would be in the office complaining about this or that tenant on a weekly basis. And I'm not talking about the legitimate noise-type of complaint. I'm referring to the "She looked at me funny," "I don't like the way he spoke to me," "That person said something to this person about me," type of complaints. My threshold for this was eventually reached and she is no longer one of my tenants. Well, that and the call center/prostitution she would perform from her apartment.

Go sell crazy some place else, we're all stocked up here.

But this story is not about her. Lets talk about another tenant who still lives in the complex. In fact he has lived there for quite some time. He pre-dates me and most of the other tenants. For the most part, he is a great guy. He goes to work, raises his toddler son on his own, and doesn't bother anybody. His one vice is "dating" various women throughout the complex. We'll call him Thinks-with-prick.

Recently he came to the office to complain about one of these women, let's call her Bug-eyes.

Oh my, that is so rude to say something like that about a person.

Oh, I'm sorry, if you were looking for compassion you're in the wrong place. Feel free to go elsewhere. Besides, have you seen her eyes? I didn't think so. Anywho, he had been seeing Bug-eyes for a little while, but had lost interest and no longer wanted to be with her. Apparently she had not gotten the message and continued to come over. His complaint was that she would not leave him alone.

"I mean, she would come by and cook for me and what-not. You know, we would watch movies because she doesn't have any. It was all cool. But she doesn't know when to leave and can't take a hint."

I don't know what he wanted me to do about this, but I didn't ask. If he assumed I would take this information and make a move, he assumed wrong. I just nodded and smiled, as if knowingly understanding, until he left.

Now this grey-area of a relationship continued for a while, until Thinks-with-prick found another tenant he was interested in. This new girl, um... Skinny-hoe, started showing up on a regular basis. But, apparently Bug-eyes didn't notice, even though they all three live no more than 100 yards (meters for my non-American friends) from each other. That is, until one day last week.