It's a damn shame James doesn't know how to cook.
James is a grown man, and intelligent and functional enough to hold down a full-time job for years on end. That he hasn't bothered to learn to cook even simple, basic meals isn't a shame; it's sheer laziness, lack of caring, and always having a woman around (Chantal; his mother) who would do it for him, so why bother?
Peetz will work but he's not cleaning. I don't know if it's a passive aggressive move because she promised shed do it and now won't, or if he truly wants to live in a hovel too. Either way, it shows he's as broken as she is.
He's never bothered to learn to cook as an adult, and obviously his mother never insisted that he learn to do so; it's no stretch to say that she did all the cooking and cleaning-up after him, never taught him to cook or clean, and he just took it for granted and never took any initiative to learn. He's one of those guys who can do his own laundry, and thinks that's enough because women do everything else. I can't tell you how many male "feminists" I've met who are like this--basically, mama's boys who girlfriends end up having to take care of because they're too useless to do it themselves.
I also suspect that, since he actually has a job and works all day, during which Chantal is eating, watching TV, or filming and editing mukbang videos, he sees it as Chantal's job to do the housework because she has more leisure time. So he leaves it for her to do, only she doesn't, and since he's not all that fussy about it in the first place, he's letting it slide. He's the kind of guy who, as long as he has a screen in front of him or a comic book to focus attention on, can ignore his actual, physical environment. So he'll be a slow-boiled frog as the house gets filthier, more foul-smelling, and more cluttered. He might have the occasional moment when he realizes that it's hotter and steamier than is comfortable, and get irate over it, but be easily distracted back into complacency.
Whoever speculated/sperged on oppositional defiant disorder in an effort post about 100 pages back: I would send you a dollar for every one of Chantal’s dainty elbees for getting it right on the nose, but alas, she’ll never tell the truth about how much she weighs.
It’s also interesting to me that ODD pinpoints her psychological pathology so precisely. Usually ODD is a disorder of children and adolescents and “matures” into a full-blown personality disorder in young adults (usually antisocial personality disorder), but Chantal’s development is so arrested that not even her personality disorder grew up. Perpetual toddler indeed.
Oh, I think her ODD did mature into a full-blown personality disorder; she's a Narcissist. But I agree that her social, intellectual, and emotional development are so stunted, she's a "failed" Narcissist--one who has been unable to use the traits inherent in the disorder to achieve any kind of success, and who, in fact, are dragged down by them. Russell Greer's an example; Kelly Lenza's probably another.