Late last year, I was on the hunt for a place of my own.

Considering I had a very limited budget, my options were narrowed down to bed spaces and partitions near my new office.

I browsed some ads on Dubizzle and posts on Facebook’s Filipino community groups and contacted the owners of the ones I was interested in.

I ended up taking the very first flat I checked.

Roughly 10 minutes’ walk from my office, the “family” flat (as it was deceptively advertised) was in a very well-maintained residential building, equipped with a swimming pool, jacuzzi, gym, sauna, and steam rooms.

For somebody who lived in a run-down 70s building for 2 years, it was like moving into Malibu Barbie’s dream house.

Everything in the flat was in working order, and all the housemates seemed friendly and fun-loving, if not for their rather unconventional lifestyle choices.

We had house parties and weekend get-togethers and the like. At times it felt like living in a circus, each one with his or her own brand of personality.

It was all fun and games… until it wasn’t.

A certain lady (who may or may not be in the right state of mind) forcibly involved us in her personal affairs. She was obsessively in love with a man — or boy — less than half her age, and the ins and outs of their pseudo-relationship was public knowledge, no thanks to her.

Of course I was scandalized by everything I saw and heard, but who was I to judge? I may have had a relatively sheltered upbringing, but that doesn’t give me the right to look down on certain types of people.

Nevertheless, all hell broke loose when the flat owner finally asked this woman to leave, and she refused and retaliated by threatening to call the police.

Let’s just say I had had enough at that point.

At risk of being forcibly evicted from a family-only residential building, I packed my bags after less than 2 months in the dream house-turned-madhouse.

I started all over again: browsing online ads, contacting owners, checking the actual places…

I wound up just 2 buildings down the madhouse in a slightly more expensive but much smaller partition (and hopefully saner housemates).

The moral of the story?

You need to draw the line between tolerance and self-preservation.

It’s one thing to be open-minded while other people’s scandalous lives play out in front of you, but when their ship goes down and they want to take you with them, it’s time to walk away.

As one man wisely put it, “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”