[Melinae]

Please tell me what is wrong with me? I have a relatively new roommate and we are building a relationship. Through a recent incident and conversation with her, I found out that she is pretty cold towards the homeless and it is doubtful that her mindset will change without our limited relation getting damaged in the process.
As a result of my discovery, I feel like a door in my heart has been slammed shut. Is this normal? Am I being too rigid?
(I feel a profound pull towards the poor and homeless and people who don't care just repel me. Help?)

I think that is great you care about the homeless but you have to understand just because you have that desire to help them not everyone else dose .

I would not let that cause problems as your both are roommates . Besides if she see you helping them who knows she might come around and want to help out , but whatever the case is you have to respect her and not force it on her .

[Melinae]

Thank you for your wisdom! I actually needed guidance on how to become more enlightened through this situation and to approach it with naught but gentleness. Thanks, Nature1968 Powerful quote!

[geis]

It sounds like the basic issue is that you're discovering you don't share the same values, and that can be really hard to navigate, especially with someone you're living with. I don't blame you for feeling upset and distanced--I think it's natural to want to pull back when we find out the other person doesn't share our core values.

I think the key question here is how you're going to manage it, given that you're living together. If you don't feel like you can be friends, that's okay--you don't have to be best buds just because you live together. But do you think you can still manage to live peacefully with her, or do you need to start exploring your other options? Either answer is legitimate; it's just a question of how you want to proceed from here.

[hvert]

I really enjoy having a variety of friends and often find myself close to people with whom I disagree strongly on certain issues. I prefer to have a live and let live approach to these things. For instance, I am a vegetarian (sometimes vegan) who lives with a die hard carnivore. He will never share my values and I will never share his. However, he eats a lot less meat now than he would have otherwise (because I cook).

I think of it as diplomatic work. You can demonstrate to your roommate that people who have different opinions can get along and find common ground elsewhere.

[tallulahxoxo]

I've been on both sides of the homeless thing.. First very caring, then not so, now caring once again. If your roommate has never been homeless/hungry/cold, and has a healthy brain, or has had a bad experience with a homeless person, she'll see things different..
For awhile I was cold toward the homeless because, one Xmas eve I was waiting for the bus and all I had was my buss pass. At that point I was always giving homeless people money. But that day ALL I HAD was my bus pass. Some guy asked me for a dollar, I said sorry I don't have one, and he cussed me out! That really affected my outlook for a few years. . It really offended me for some reason.
Now I'm sleeping in my car and my perspective has changed yet again..

[hamster-bamster]

Originally Posted by Melinae

Please tell me what is wrong with me? I have a relatively new roommate and we are building a relationship. Through a recent incident and conversation with her, I found out that she is pretty cold towards the homeless and it is doubtful that her mindset will change without our limited relation getting damaged in the process.
As a result of my discovery, I feel like a door in my heart has been slammed shut. Is this normal? Am I being too rigid?
(I feel a profound pull towards the poor and homeless and people who don't care just repel me. Help?)

Melinae, go to any website about various causes. Change.org or another site with petitions, or an aggregator of information on charities. You will see that there are many causes. Some people care about homeless people; other people care about homeless animals; yet others care about homeless people AND animals; yet others try to raise money for Indian children who have to walk 10K one way to school - I once participated in a 5K that raised money to buy bikes for those Indian kids. And really, a myriad different causes. Maybe your new roommate cares as deeply about cause XYZ as you care about the homeless. Who knows? Or, she might be too wrapped up in her current stuff to care about much outside of her immediate issues, for the moment.

Personally, I very much understand your point of view. I used to work at a place that was near a grocery store (upscale) that was known for giving free food to the homeless. One of my colleagues, a guy, would always speak in derogatory terms of the homeless, but I clearly saw mental illness in them (or neurological - some appeared deeply autistic and were not verbal). But I let it slide - I did not express my opinion since I had to work with the guy and other than that he was a perfectly nice guy. I hope you can do the same with your roommate.

And finally, what you TRULY care about is probably not how to make everybody share your position on the homeless, but about how to help the homeless lead better lives.

I sometimes foster kitties and sometimes participate in the trap-immunize-spay/neuter-release missions to help reduce the population of ferals. But I have stopped participating in FB discussions with people who choose not to castrate their indoor-outdoor kitties because they consider castration cruel. I am not going to convince them, probably, and would be wasting my time. And their time. But if I catch a feral and take it to the spay and neuter clinic spending $10 on fixing the feral (out county gives subsidies for ferals, which is why it is so little out of pocket for volunteers), I would have made a positive impact. I hope you can refocus the energy from discussing the homeless onto actually helping them.

[Yoda]

I had a close friend who became homeless and it saddened me deeply but I could not make him not-homeless although I did give him some money for food and paid for a drug prescription when he needed it. But I cannot give money to all the homeless so I donate to a shelter and a soup kitchen and participate in coat drives and gloves.

I don't know what experiences has shaped your roommate's opinion. My ex-H once was asked by a supposed homeless person for money and he didn't want to give cash that could be used for alcohol or worse so he went in the drug store and bought her a box of poptarts. Not the best food, I know, but he was doing what he could with the resources available and she threw the poptarts on the ground and cursed him. He doesn't hate homeless people because of that but I'd bet he is less trusting. Or maybe not.

Sad really that in our country so many have so little.

[ChipperMonkey]

Is your roommate a Republican? That could be a major reason as they're pretty heartless about social plights and such.

Some people just can't see beyond their own noses. Is she the type of person who thinks "they just need to get jobs!" Sort of short sightedness?

I can't do a lot to help others, as I'm not able to work myself right now, but I do give whenever I can. I don't understand why people don't want to help others. Oh, right, we live in a capitalistic society where doing good for your fellow man is considered (GASP!) Socialism!