imagine you've just moved into a shared house and one of the housemates, who is there a lot of the time, acts like you don't exist... it's a bit awkward. I moved in and the girl who has been here the longest doesn't even say hello when I bump into her nor did she even show me where I could keep my things in the kitchen when I arrived. If I had a new housemate I would at least do that, not act like we're two strangers on a midnight train. It's especially awkward as she takes over the sitting room every evening, sitting in the middle of the saggy sofa so there's no room for anyone else, while watching MY telly all evening, and I end up sneaking down to get some food then back to my room like a naughty teenager. It's probably my fault for being so timid and easily intimidated, but she is kind of surly and cold. Her friends are nice and always say hello and give me a smile, whereas she just turns her head then away again. She does make conversation sometimes but it's always about her and invariably involves her lecturing about her field of expertise (she's a history teacher) or mouthing off dogmatically about her pet peeves (religion and eating meat)... ho hum. She told me about her extreme vertigo/phobia of heights and so to empathise I mentioned that I had agoraphobia for a few years and her reaction was just an incredulous "oh, that's bizarre" and I felt like a freak, an embarassed freak. I wish I was more assertive - I'm such a wuss! Oh well, she starts a new job at a different school come September so she'll have to be moved out by then - and there'll be LOADS of room too when she takes all her crap with her! She did ask me to feed her guinea pigs while she was away this week which I duly did and I thought we were developing a rapport but I don't think it came to anything... I tried to think of a nickname for here which was initially Judge Dredd then I decided on Judge Judy (her name is similar) which is more fitting. For a while it was Sue Perkins cos there is a physical similarity but my friend told me off for calling her that 'cos Sue Perkins is actually cool... My other housemate is an academic from Argentina, and he's lovely; always smiles and makes conversation so it's not all bad.