I Found a Spider in My Apartment and Gave It a Name, a Backstory, and an Emotional Grip on My Day

His name is Larry. He's a single dad.

Black and white animation spider by James Guthman via Giphy

Some people see a spider in their bathroom and immediately grab the nearest shoe like they're preparing for insect warfare. I am not those people. I see a spider in my bathroom and my brain goes straight to creating an entire biographical documentary about his personal struggles and career aspirations.

This is how I ended up emotionally invested in a spider who I'm now convinced is going through a rough patch in his personal life.

It started when I walked into my bathroom and there he was. Just hanging out on the wall next to my mirror, probably judging my skincare routine. A perfectly reasonable spider doing perfectly reasonable spider things. But instead of doing what any normal person would do—kill him, relocate him, or panic and call someone braver—my brain immediately went rogue.

He looked tired. Like, genuinely exhausted. His legs weren't positioned in that alert, ready-to-scurry formation that spiders usually maintain. He was just... slumped there. And before I could stop myself, I thought, "This guy's having a day."

So obviously, I named him Larry.

Because Larry felt right. Larry sounds like someone who's been dealt a tough hand but keeps showing up anyway. Larry sounds like a guy who drives a sedan that makes weird noises but gets him where he needs to go. Larry sounds like someone who would apologize for taking up space in my bathroom even though he pays zero rent.

But naming him was just the beginning of what became a full psychological profile.

While brushing my teeth, I started noticing details. The way he positioned himself near the corner suggested someone who values security but doesn't want to impose.

But the bathroom location was actually pretty bold when you think about it. Larry had surveyed all the available real estate in my apartment and decided the one room where I'm guaranteed to be trapped with him multiple times a day was prime territory.

This was Larry. And Larry needed a friend.

By day three, I'd developed his entire backstory.

Larry used to live in a nice web behind the outdoor light fixture with his wife, Linda, and their three kids. But then a storm came through, destroying everything they'd built together. Linda took the kids and moved in with her sister who lives in the hedge by the front door. Larry, meanwhile, has been couch-surfing between various indoor locations, trying to get back on his feet.

He's not handling the separation well.

The bathroom is just temporary until he can find a more permanent situation. He spends most of his time staring at the wall, probably wondering where everything went wrong. Sometimes I catch him in different positions and I'm convinced he's pacing.

By the end of the week, Larry had completely hijacked my daily routine.

Every morning, I'd walk into the bathroom and scan his usual spot before I could even think about starting my day. If he was there, I felt relieved. If he wasn't, I'd spend five minutes looking around to make sure he hadn't fallen into the toilet or gotten himself trapped somewhere dangerous.

I started timing my showers around what I imagined were his sleep cycles. I found myself saying "sorry, Larry" when I had to turn on the bright lights.

At work, I'd catch myself wondering how Larry was doing. Was he getting enough to eat? Was the bathroom too humid? Did he feel abandoned while I was gone for nine hours?

This spider had turned me into an anxious pet parent, except he wasn't my pet and he definitely hadn't consented to this relationship.

Because now Larry had become my responsibility.

Not because I asked for this. Not because it made any logical sense. But because once you've assigned someone a name and a tragic backstory, you're emotionally invested in their wellbeing whether you like it or not.

This is how my brain works. I can't just coexist with a random spider. No. I have to create an entire story about his personal struggles and then feel guilty about his living situation.

Larry doesn't have health insurance. Larry's probably eating whatever he can find, which in my bathroom amounts to basically nothing. Larry's going through a divorce and living in substandard housing and I'm just standing there every morning, brushing my teeth while his whole world falls apart.

When my friend came over and saw Larry, her immediate response was, "Ew, you have a spider. Do you want me to kill it?"

And I heard myself say, "No, that's Larry. He's going through a tough time right now."

The look she gave me suggested I might need professional help.

But the thing about giving a bug a personality is you can't take it back.

Once Larry became Larry—a single dad trying to rebuild his life after losing everything in a weather event—I couldn't just see him as a random spider anymore. He was Larry. And Larry deserved better than whatever I could offer him in my bathroom.

So I did something that felt both insane and necessary.

I relocated Larry.

Not with a glass and paper method that would have traumatized him further. I left the bathroom window open all day and waited for him to make his own choice about leaving. By evening, he was gone.

I like to think he found a nice spot in the neighbor’s garden where he can start over. Maybe he'll reconcile with Linda. Maybe he'll build a bigger, better web. Maybe he'll meet a nice spider who appreciates his emotional depth and commitment to his children.

Or maybe he just moved to my neighbor's bathroom and is currently being named Harold by someone else who has zero impulse control when it comes to anthropomorphizing household spiders.

Either way, I learned something important about myself. I cannot handle sharing living space with any creature without developing a complex emotional relationship with them that derails my ability to function normally.

I clearly cannot be trusted to remain objective about the personal lives of insects.

But also, if anyone sees a spider in their garden who looks like he's been through some stuff and responds to the name Larry, tell him his old roommate says hi and that I still worry about whether he's eating enough.