Dear Roommate,

It felt really empowering yesterday evening when we had the following convo:

Me: [putting on shoes]
You: Where are you going?
Me: Um... I was invited to Wine Night by some coworkers.
You: ...And are you going to invite me?
Me: [deep breath] No. I don't know these people well enough to show up with an extra guest who wasn't invited.

In the past you've brow-beaten me into inviting you places when I wasn't comfortable doing so. I think it's rude to extend extraneous invitations to small, intimate gatherings when you are not the event planner, and I've told you so. It's not that I'm trying to exclude you, but here are two things to keep in mind (aside from the above):

1) I talk about work with my coworkers/friends. Not in the problem-solving way, but in the bitching about management, telling funny stories about other coworkers way. You don't work with us, you aren't going to work with us, and you generally seem to have a difficult time listening to stories that don't involve something you can relate to--so you change the subject to you, which is rude and a transparent attention-grab.

2) For the holy love of Jesus, we do not need to spend all of our free time together. We are not married. You are my roommate, not my Siamese twin. Sometimes I get to go places without you, and I should not be made to feel guilty for not inviting you someplace sometimes.

So our little chat wherein I informed you that, no, you weren't going to be invited last night might have been slightly uncomfortable for the both of us, and nothing more than a small blip to most people, but it was the first sign that I'm finally finding the cojones to live my own life without trying to please everyone else.

Feeling slightly liberated,
R

PS Wow you were a total cock-block on Friday. You don't bitch about being so tired that you almost fell asleep at the restaurant and say how much you can't wait to go to bed, and then, when you find out that me and a guy are gonna go get a drink, decide you're awake enough to tag along.