In 1968, a comedy called "The Odd Couple," starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau, told the story of two divorced men, Felix Ungar (a neurotic neatfreak) and Oscar Madison (a fun-loving slob) who decide to live together. This is a script that plays itself out again and again as college starts and students find themselves paired with roommates whom they do not know and do not get along with.
Clashes of this type can happen with newly-married couples as well, although studies have shown that women traditionally do more cleaning up in the household. Researcher Sarah Riforgiate says, "Women have a slightly better sense of smell. Men and women have a different number of rods and cones in their eyes. Men are better at seeing movement, and women are better at seeing color and texture (dirt on the floor?). These small biological differences can contribute to differences in (cleanliness) threshold levels."
While studying ants and bees, entomologists discovered that insects have different threshold levels of tolerance for uncompleted tasks. If bees with different threshold levels are paired together, the bee that is most disturbed with a low honey level has been found to work harder, sometimes working itself to death.
A SMART "Felix" would neglect his or her own half of the chores, and just wait for "Oscar" to get frustrated and do them (along with his own tasks). That wouldn’t be fair, but it’s insect (and HUMAN) nature.
Does your roommate throw away your books? Get even! Subscribers can get a beautiful hardcover of Whitley’s novel Hybrids for just $4.99!
Or put down that broom and live free–like an Indian! Learn some ancient magic secrets at the same time. If you can’t join a tribe, you can still learn The Secret of Orenda.
Subscribers, to watch the subscriber version of the video, first log in then click on Dreamland Subscriber-Only Video Podcast link.