I moved out of the house I shared with my ex a couple of weeks into January. After spending a week gratefully crashing on the couches of kind friends and feeling like the Littlest Hobo, I was becoming a little desperate and decided to reply to an ad online about a room for rent. The rent was reasonable, the neighbourhood was close to where I needed to be, and the two girls living there seemed nice. Within a day or two, it was a done deal, and I moved all of my worldly goods into a basement bedroom. Sitting on the twin bed and looking around the bare walls, I told myself that it would be fine for the next several months. Why, I thought, it could be an adventure!

Looking for an apartment is kind of like playing minesweeper. There’s something awful waiting, but you don’t know when or where you’re going to discover it. Sure, it’s energy-efficient and great on utilities, but there’s no laundry hook-up. The hardwood floors are beautiful, but the ceiling leaks. The location is fantastic, but your next-door neighbour is Rape Clown.  You know how it is. There’s always a catch. I don’t know whether it’s lucky or not, but I discovered the catch when the ink on the lease was barely dry.

I noticed I was hearing voices.Voices having conversations about dinner plans and whose turn it was to pick up the milk and that whore at work. My first thought was that I was finally having a complete nervous breakdown brought on by extreme amounts of stress. After I realized that my subconscious couldn’t possibly know that much about Twilight, I was left with the sinking realization that the wall separating me from the people in the basement apartment may as well have been constructed from tissue paper.

Hours later, listening to squeaking bedsprings and a nasal, shrill voice begging “Greg” to fuck her harder, I came to the conclusion that I would have preferred the psychosis.

Every day I learn more about my ever-present friends, my resentment grows just a little. I hear entire conversations, can pinpoint the exact stupid thing he says that’s going to cause an argument, and from there it’s just the waiting game for the inevitable makeup sex theatrics. Some of the people I have explained this to have said that it must be entertaining at least. I can understand how it would seem that way, but I assure you, it is not. I would rather give unmedicated birth to a passel of hedgehogs than listen to this woman’s clumsy attempts at dirty talk. Hearing her ask for the fourth time if he’s going to come or not makes me want to set my vagina on fire rather than risk even the smallest degree of association with the whole ghastly affair. Any entertainment value gleaned from the first couple of times vanishes once you realize that it’s just never going to stop. Dante himself couldn’t have dreamed this up. Neighbours or not, I guarantee you that if Fred Rogers had to listen to King Friday and Lady Elaine getting down in detail this graphic, he’d have hung himself by the sleeve of his goddamn cardigan.

And yet, when I give the slow golf clap afterwards, I’m somehow the rude one. Well, I’m sorry, but Emily Post never addressed this. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.

Also, if you don’t know whether he’s come or not, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.