Must love...bugs?

Thought I could use a more light-hearted posting, and this is kind of funny. My current roommate and I were just sitting around discussing what makes for good roommate compatibility; in college, we generally choose based on convenience, but now that we're moving out into the "real world" we're facing the prospect of "interviewing" with potential roommates and trying to decide how one goes about making these decisions.

In the middle of this discussion, I got up to get something in the kitchen and then heard a thump and a shriek from the bedroom. I ran back into the room to find my roommate standing and pointing at her notebook on the floor a few feet away from her; she looked up and me guiltily and confessed, "I just threw that notebook on a fly, but now I'm scared to pick it up." Now, at this point, I have to confess that I'm feeling a little smug; I am generally the one afraid of bugs in our relationship. In fact, this summer, I had to call her to come over (she was not living with me at the time) to kill a spider (in my defense, it was HUGE) that had taken up residence on our outside staircase--not because I thought it would get in, and not because I ever had to go near it, but because it scared me too much just to see it through our kitchen window. So, after enjoying my rare moment of superior-courage-in-the-face-of-insects, I picked up the fly and threw it away.

At this point, I couldn't help mentioning that I never knew she was afraid of bugs (yes, I was enjoying this too much). I asked her what, in particular, bothered her so much about flies. We discovered that we have totally different approaches to insects. She views them from a pragmatic perspective; she is extremely bothered by insects that have no purpose. (And apparently flies have no purpose; she's the science person so I'm just trusting her on that one.) For that reason, however, she respects spiders; she even campaigned, briefly, for the Godzilla spider on the porch (although she relented when she realized that I was avoiding the kitchen and therefore starving myself because I couldn't stand to see that spider!) I, on the other hand, am more of the artist/philosopher when it comes to bugs. I can appreciate insects that are beautiful and don't bother anyone--ones that either increase or at least don't decrease my quality of life, and that includes moths and flies. They might buzz a little, but they are not out to harm me and sometimes they are even entertaining to watch flying around. I cannot, however, deal with spiders; spiders are scary looking, they want to bite me (I simply don't believe those people who say "they're more scared of you than you are of them"--if that were really the case, why would they EVER creep and crawl into my presence?!), and I know they serve some higher purpose but I would rather they served it out of my presence, thank you very much.

We laughed when we realized how differently we regarded the bug situation, and how, at the end of the day, neither of us really have the moral high-ground. And while we are not bug compatible (as in, we both would rather live with the bugs that the other despises), we are bug-exterminating compatible; if we can accept the other's fears as legitimate, then we can be very helpful to each other in killing off our opposing insect nemeses.

So maybe that will be my next interview question: Do you take the pragmatic or philosophic approach to insects? More importantly, will you be the one in the relationship who kills all the spiders? Because if not, that might be a deal-breaker.