Shitty flatmates? Or do I need to get my head out of my own ass?

[Animatronic_Squirrel]

I feel like a chump putting this post down at all. But I'm having trouble coming to grips with what's going on. I guess I'm hoping that writing this out might help me figure this out, and hopefully also get an outside perspective

Background;

I'm a first year mature student living in a university flat of eight.

I've been on friendly terms with everyone, and on better terms with a mature-student, final-year student - we clicked moderately well, have some similar experiences, and we'd hang out or drink together. She's funny to be around and I enjoy her company. We were also fairly close; in our first few weeks, she took me aside and told me that she's in a relationship with a girl who'd been introduced to me as a friend from previous years - something she'd been wanting to keep secret from the flat. Said she felt safe telling me though, and has told only one other person in the flat. Likewise, I've come to her when I needed to talk or get a solid, outside perspective on things.

The situation;

One of the new arrivals and I hooked up; it was loud, public and pretty much instantaneous. It's a completely open relationship/fwb situation, but it also turns out we have ridiculous chemistry in bed and get along pretty well outside it, so we've been hanging out almost exclusively for the past few weeks. This is a novel situation for me, and I've been very into her - we're very much a couple right now.

Since this started, I've been getting... 'odd' behavior from the rest of the flat - 'whip-cracking' noises from the guys, and moments where they seem to deliberately get in my way and give me a hard time (where previously they were chill, friendly and helpful). The girls are civil and extremely cold. The friend has basically ignored me when I asked her to hang out and catch up, been civil when we're alone, and seems to find public opportunities to name-call, call me out a lot and bust my balls waaaaay more than before. She generally borders the edge of friendly, though a few times, one of the younger girls pulled her back when she started commenting on my relationship status or started out-right calling me names and hurriedly said something about 'women troubles'.

Had a drink with one of the guys alone last night, where I basically asked him what the fuck was going on - he said something vague about the girls losing respect for me, given that my hookup gave a very 'particular' impression and how quickly it happened, and that they're looking forward to the fall out when she burns me. He didn't clarify beyond that, and I decided not to ask.

So far, I havn't been bothered (and I assumed the friend was just stressed and in poor health - dissertation + ending up in hospital due to a health condition would make ME catty); but its starting to become too consistent overall and a little too 'loud' for me to ignore, especially as I'll be living with them all for another 6 months, and at least two of them for another year after. I want to be able to address this if its going to become a problem.

So, tl;dr Bedded a new flatmate, rest of the flat has suddenly turned very cold. Its pretty clear that I might be a social retard, and also that I need to get better at comebacks and learn to defend myself better - but before I do that, I'm trying to understand if I've made some kind of breach of etiquette here.

What's the heck is going on?

 

[ray_zorse]

You have a bit of a shitty situation on your hands because, on the one hand, you say "it's very much a FWB" and on the other hand, you say "we're very much a couple right now"... well unless you are super good at managing expectations she probably thinks it's verging on the couple-ish side too... and what's worse, because you live together you are deprived of most of your relationship management tools, you can't easily keep her at arm's length for a week (which you should be doing -- read the article "what to expect from FWB")... edit: and can you imagine the drama if you were to bring a cold approach lay home while this is going on... so unless you're going to commit to this gal then I think maybe your friends are right, there could be a bit of an explosion in the offing, or at least a release of pressure... one of you is likely to crack first (realizing you're spending too much time together)... and if it's her she'll probably throw up some massive shit tests and drama to force you to back off a bit and/or demonstrate just how into her you really are (which sounds like a lot).

So you probably do need to sort shit out.

Having said that, it's not really any of their business, and this cold behaviour is a load of crap... I would pretty much just brazen it out, continue to be your ordinary cool self and act as if nothing has changed in their behaviour (this isn't easy, just be warm towards them and include them in stuff just like before, if they freeze you out as a result then just try to ignore it and proceed pretty much as before)... don't ask what is wrong because it's their responsibility to bring it up if they have an issue. Something will have to give eventually, whether it's your relationship with this gal or your relationship with housemates... ideally what would happen is you make sure you're on the same page with your gal in regards to the FWB, cut down the amount of time you're spending together to something reasonable without her throwing up a lot of drama and shit tests, and gradually your relationship with housemates should improve... however, do not submit to their frame, if you make them come out and say things like "you're disrupting the vibe of the house and we don't approve blah blah blah" then that makes it real and they'll have to stick with it. Keep it low key and avoid any verbalization of the situation on their part or yours.

Hope that helps. I'm not really an expert on these kinds of situations but recently I have had to deal with a few, and have found that brazening it out, and avoiding verbalizing, is key to maintaining my frame. It really does work. Since I started doing this, they backed off every time, and the issues went away.

-Ray

 

[Smith]

Animatronic

I think this is a pretty typical passive aggressive behavoiur, because I can remember when I used to live in a big flat and whenever there seemed to any problem, most people would resort to passive aggressive behaviour hoping the perpetrator would know what they did wrong and sort their shit out, but that usually just leads to more conflicts.

it was loud, public and pretty much instantaneous.

Maybe this was the problem.
and plus

he said something vague about the girls losing respect for me, given that my hookup gave a very 'particular' impression and how quickly it happened, and that they're looking forward to the fall out when she burns me.

Your hook up wasn't discreet, and it led to your flatmates putting quick judgements on you, which is total bullshit. They lose respect for you? Na, I'm guessing they think the new girl is a slut and you fuck slut. so basically, they're trying to shame you for being a man whore too. Cut these people out of your life if you can or become more discreet if you're still planning to have them around as friends.

Good luck

 

[Man-O]

Your hook up wasn't discreet, and it led to your flatmates putting quick judgements on you, which is total bullshit. They lose respect for you? Na, I'm guessing they think the new girl is a slut and you fuck slut. so basically, they're trying to shame you for being a man whore too. Cut these people out of your life if you can or become more discreet if you're still planning to have them around as friends.

This. Their reaction to you banging a girl under the flat who you just met is retarded. First off why can't they grow a pair and tell you directly? Secondly, what's the problem with you hooking up with one in short time and you both have fun with it except for the other douches.
I think there's too little going on in their life. Either you find a way to compromise with them by squeezing it out what exactly their problem is and talk about it or you find another flat or you wait till it's hopefully stopped.