Hard to explain

Round 26: Summer 2023

Last update: Amar and Jacob/Gordon (plus Lia's last update)

Next update/Gordon's next update

Gordon Nott is 27, Amar Hamilton and Jacob Weaver are both 22.
(Lia is 26, Claudia is 22)

Narrated by Jacob Weaver

After I graduated, I was looking for a place to live and answered an ad in the paper from Gordon, who was looking for a room mate. He needed someone to pay half the rent, which I can't do on my salary so we ended up with Amar living with us as well.

Gordon is pretty okay. I was pretty desperate to find a place to live and I probably would have ended up rooming with anyone, so I could have done a lot worse.

He's got a dog named Paddy who kind of reminds me of my own dogs at home. Well, they're Tatiana's dogs really but I kind of missed having animals around while I was away at college. I can't get too attached to him though. Gordon's going to take him with him when he moves out in about six months time.

Amar is...well, he's still Amar. He worked for a little while in a convenience store, then found something in a record store. I don't think he's got any real career aspirations. He talks about a different idea every week. His latest one is that he's going to be a professional photographer.

All he's done in the way of photography is snap pictures of unsuspecting girls. No one's going to pay him to do that so he might have to expand his repertoire if he's serious.

I guess it's a pretty typical guys' place in most ways, except for the fact that we eat really well, thanks to me. I kind of had to teach myself to cook once I was old enough, or I would have been eating Mum's burnt spaghetti every night for dinner.

Even Gordon can manage spaghetti.

I had to laugh when I visited Mum and she asked me if I wanted her to make some meals to take back home with me. Um...no. I really didn't.

I can just about still get my arms around Tatiana but she's getting bigger every day. The baby is due in Autumn. Visiting my family really hammered home for me how much I like having my own space, even if it's still shared. It's just too crowded in that house! I don't know where they're going to put this baby once it's born but I guess they'll figure something out.

Dad was happy when I said I'd found a job but not so thrilled that it's in fast food. Well...I'm not so thrilled about that either. But I don't really know what I want to do with my life yet and it's better than nothing. I only spent a couple of weeks on dish washing duty at least. That really sucked.

Claudia is really not impressed about me living with Amar. I can understand why but Amar was really just convenient. We're not best buddies or anything.

You just can't really rely on Amar for anything serious or stable but to hang around with when there's no one else, he's okay.

I know better than to bring that up with Claudia, of course. We don't usually have much reason to talk about Amar. It's a good thing too, because she gets a little annoyed when the subject comes up.

He's definitely still kind of an ass though. He tried to hit on Gordon's fiancée. She turned him down, obviously.

Gordon was really pissed though, understandably. Lia made a pretty hasty exit and Gordon laid into Amar as soon as she was out the door. Amar told him he was overacting; Gordon told Amar he was lucky he wasn't being thrown out. I think he probably would have kicked him out if Gordon wasn't moving out so soon anyway.

Amar isn't really interested in Lia. He knows he can't get into her pants and I don't think he's got much use for women unless he can.

He's still seeing a few of the girls I used to see him with around the dorms when we were still at college.

But he brings new ones home all the time. I don't even know their names most of the time. I wonder if he even does.

Gordon finds Amar's lifestyle pretty disgusting and Lia won't come over since Amar hit on her, so they're going out more than they normally do of late.

Lia is the reason Gordon is moving out - they're getting married this winter. Gordon says he waited long enough to propose that he's not nervous about marriage, which I can't imagine. Gordon's five years older than me though, so maybe it's something that comes with time. I wonder if I'll feel more sure about everything in five years time.

So we're not quite ready for the marriage thing right now but Claudia and I are pretty happy together the way we are.

We spend a lot of time at her place. I think it's awesome that she's got so much privacy but she's lonely and she wants room mates.

Room mates or for me to move in. To Claudia, it's the perfect solution. I'd have the privacy I don't have at home right now and she'd have the company she wants.

I actually like living apart from Claudia, at least for now. When I see her now, I get excited about it, even when it hasn't been that long. We were already living together in the dorms when we hooked up and then started dating, so we've never really been excited to see each other before. We were always just right there in front of each other.

Claudia brings up the idea of moving in together a lot and my answer, so far, is always the same. She gets a little sulky sometimes but I don't think I should make a huge decision like that just because she sulks about it.

The sulking doesn't last long anyway. She knows attempting to nag me into moving in with her is probably not the best plan of action. It's got to be something we're both comfortable with and I'm just not, yet.

Notes:

• Title is from Hard to Explain by the Strokes.
• Amar is an Arts & Crafts Sim and he kept rolling wants to Take a Picture. I might do something with that idea eventually but not just yet. He dreams big but has no motivation to actually do anything. He wants to buy a vacation home but never rolls up the want to skill for promotion, so as to earn more money to buy said home.
• So you know I set up Amar flirting with Joanna (though he had the want) but he flirted with Lia all on his own and she rejected him all on her own. They have one bolt but seeing Lia is Family and engaged, he didn't have much of a chance.
• Claudia and Jacob have rolled the want to marry each other but seeing they're both also rolling marriage wants for their exes (Maia for Jacob, Amar and Elmer for Claudia - Jacob hasn't rolled it for Patience, interestingly), I really don't think they're ready yet. But I do see Claudia as thinking she's ready, because I think of her as a bit of a hopeless romantic type.