My Roommates Biggest Phobia

We had been talking about rooming together for months back in America, when I suddenly realized we hadn't talked about something... "Um, Talia, you don't care if I'm naked in the room do you?"
There was an awkward silence.

Let me start again. My freshman year of college my roommate and I were naked all the time. It was through unspoken consent that we didn't have to get changed the second we got out of the shower, and neither of us were particularly modest, so we just kinda never cared if the other was naked in the room.

As it turns out, Talia has no similar sentiments. She is an advertising major from Salem, Massachusetts, and her terror of naked people has led me to believe that the puritan ghosts of all the people executed during the Salem witch trials chill-ax around the area and instill terror of the human body in the locals.

The first morning that we were staying in our new flat, I was sitting on my bed watching a movie when Talia came in from her shower. I looked up to a second, and then went back on watching Kill Bill Volume 1 with my big noise cancellation headphones. After a minute I looked up to see Talia gesturing to me to pay attention. I paused Lucy Lui mid-slash and took off my headphones.

"Umm... Can you please turn around?" Talia asked.
I kind of stared blankly.
"I'm about to change..." She prompted.
I still didn't understand.
To clear things up she said, "I'm about to get naked, can you please look away?"

I was not raised in a modest house, but I had always tried to be sympathetic to people who were uncomfortable with nudity. I decided that this was probably a one-time thing and that she would most likely get used to the 'changing with another person in the room' thing quickly enough. As I turned to face the wall, I wondered at the reasoning behind taking me out of the movie I was actively engaged in, just to get me to turn around from something that I had no interest in, in the first place. If anything I was way more aware of her changing now then I had been while watching Uma and Lucy kick each other around.


So, several weeks has gone by and nothing had changed. Now when she told me to look around I would simply say yes and go back to whatever I had been doing previously. Tonight though, she hit her breaking point. Anther one of our flatmates was doing work in out room and it hit 2:30 in the morning. We were all tired and I wanted to go to bed. I went to brush my teeth and wash my face, but when I came back, Talia and Bri were still talking. I looked over at the two of them and said, "Sorry, I'm taking my shirt off."

Bri, looked on calmly... She is a threatre major so no amounts of nudity faze her.
Talia on the other hand shrieked, "No! You didn't give me time to look away! You didn't give me time!"

I smiled, amused at the polar opposite reactions. For a few minutes I walked around topless, talking to Bri and hearing Talia horrified in the background. After I finished getting ready for bed I turned to Talia and told her that I was getting naked. She looked horrified. "But Bri is in the room!!!" she yelled, hoping to buy herself some time.

I looked over at Bri. She shrugged, obviously not caring one way or the other. So I got naked. Talia almost cried. "Naked! Naked! Nakkkkkeeeedddd!" She yelled. She then emitted a noise that was similar to a dying cat, then looked away.

I was satisfied. I truly believe that facing your fears is the best way to rid yourself them. So I have started work on releasing Talia's inner puritan... now all that's left of Talia's fears are nails, music, spiders, being late, being alone, darkness, mushrooms, taxidermy anything, crowds of people, raw tomato's, late homework & several other hundred things that scare her. I think I'm making progress.