A girl I once lived with

I once lived with a girl who was puzzling, to say the least. I got to know her because she worked near a place where I worked. She seemed really great and friendly. She was moving out of her room in a house in an area quite far away and looking for something closer to work. Someone in the flat I lived in was moving out. It seemed perfect. She moved in and it was going to be great fun.

That's when I noticed some things which had seemed fairly minor before. The main one was that she didn't know how to communicate unless the conversation was a) about her or b) something she could turn around so it was about her.

To have a conversation that was about something else, something apart from her immediate situation, for example, about the current situation in the Middle East, or which political party is in power, or how the recession has affected the country, was alien to her. She froze. She'd join in while it was at the stage where she could still offer something about herself but as it drifted further and further away from her and became about something else, she'd freeze. She'd sit there, looking at each of us, panic in her eyes and eventually just slope off to her bedroom.

Occasionally, she'd make a desperate last ditch attempt to bring the conversation back to the earlier subject of herself. The result was as follows....

"So do you think they'll make a coalition then?"
"Yeh, maybe. But who will they go with, Conservative or Labour?"
"I think Labour. Isn't it funny how they have the power now because...."
"I'M GOING TO MAKE LEMON CUPCAKES TOMORROW!"

Silence....

Awkwardness....

"Um yeh, it's funny about how the LibDems have the power to decide now, who they want to team up with.... Um..."
"...Yeh."

If myself or any of the other flatmates had friends over, she'd come in the room, because she obviously wanted to join in but didn't know how. So she'd just sit silently watching everyone, trying to figure out how to join in. It was close to impossible to include her in a conversation (unless it was about herself or she could make it about herself) so attempts to help her into things were wasted. She'd just watch for a while, then leave.

Eventually she started coming in from work and running straight from the front door to her room. She refused to speak to me at home for weeks, yet would speak to me at work like nothing was wrong! I'd go in her shop or she'd come and get a tea at the coffee shop where I worked and she wouldn't mention the fact that she wouldn't speak to me at home.

If I had stuff to ask her about the flat, I'd ask her at work, money for bills etc.

She once shouted at me because I mentioned something about cleaning, which she seemed allergic to. Instead of responding to my suggestion of making a rota for cleaning to make sure everyone was doing some (she never did), she said: "I'M JEALOUS OF YOU AND ALL YOUR FRIENDS!"

How do you respond to that? You suggest a cleaning rota. She says she's annoyed with you because you have friends and she's jealous.

It got to the point where she hated having to be around us so much that she just ordered take away, rather than come in the kitchen for even a second to get food. There'd be a knock, a scurry of feet, the smell of pizza and a scurry of feet back to her room. She also never brought the leftovers to put in the fridge. She'd just keep it in her room, all nice and warm, and dig in the next day.

I feel like I might be making it up because it sounds so odd, but honestly, it's a true story.