Jaycee Woods

Recently finished formatting a draft story with the working title “Goth Dormmate.” It sits in my roommate story genre with a goth girl vibe. Because it is one of my draft stories, these elements are representational.

Young guys like Hidan and Chronic, idealize goth girls as the most intriguing subculture of the ladies. I didn’t get the fascination (ignoring the history of Lilly Munster, Morticia Addams, & Elvira), so I tried to rationalize it. Unlike most women, goth girls wear their psychological wounds as a costume. There isn’t any horrifying surprise as when the ‘normal’ woman turns out to be hiding a painfully damaged soul. To see a goth girl is to witness feminine openness and honesty, which is refreshing. Thus, that is what I try to put into my few goth girl characters, no hidden surprises, just self-revealing honesty. I guess my first one was Lilith who is a public-school teacher LARPing as a soul sucking demon IRL. As designed, these goth girl characters are intended to elicit the male reaction of “I can fix her.” It is like a goth girl is a potentially glorious derelict house that can be restored with skill, dedication, and TLC.

Within my roommate genre, I play with Jordan Peterson’s identification that our contemporary integration of men and women socially is an experimental variance from historical experience without clear tested behavioral norms so friction is inevitable. These drafts are like an updated “Three is Company” played for drama instead of comedy. In my favorite of these, the female roommate was experiencing a mental breakdown that required an involuntary hold for observation with the unfortunate male roommate sucked into providing care for her during a jarring crisis.

The dormmate is a special variant of that genre. I exceed current campus policies by having a male and female student assigned to share the same dormroom despite his objection to the situation. These drafts address the collapse of exclusive male spaces in which the man has no sanctuary from female surveillance, chattering, performative offense, and intrusive unwelcomed direction. In the end, the male student is forced by her acting out for attention to compromise through giving her visibility and centering her needs so he can establish boundaries enabling him to study for his classes.

This latter accommodation is a lesson learned about men needing to consciously make the effort to address female emotional needs that differ from male relationships. For example, so she can feel heard and process her disorganized thoughts, he listens patiently to her tell a meandering stream of consciousness story that seems like it will never get to the point.