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College Roommates - Breaking up is hard to do (but sometimes necessary)Jun 14 '02 (Updated Jun 16 '02) Write an essay on this topic.The Bottom Line Most roommate problems can be worked out. If you are in a real mess, then find help. I remember when I attended some kind of seminar where the paid professional leader said: “No one can make you mad.” I was thinking, “Hum, I can sure think of some times where someone has made me mad.” I could see where this group leader was coming from. The way you react can make a difference, but it does take two to tango. If someone stomps all over your feet, it does hurt. After four years in college, 2 years in grad school, and working as a lecturer in a small college now where I “hear all the stories” . . . I’ve got a pretty good “feel” for roommates. In most cases, having a good year on the room front boils down to communication. Though it is hard to go from having a value-meal sized home with a private bedroom (in many cases) to a closet to share with a stranger, it can be done and can be a good thing. You learn to speak up and to listen, and you learn to work things out. Even if you hook up with a high school friend for dorm space, living a yardstick away from another person puts a new spin on togetherness. Actually, it may be easier to take potluck when you first go to college. At least, you’re prepared for the unexpected when you don’t know the other person at all. Whether you go with a somewhat “known” person or go with a total stranger, you’ll need to work things through. I would give you a list, but it really varies from case to case. For some pairs, it may be the lights on and lights off time. For another, it may be the boyfriend/girlfriend visitation. For others, it may be the food and who eats and pays. It doesn’t take long to figure out what the issues are. It’s better to deal with problems as they come up rather than stew on and on about your rude roommate who dries her underwear on the curtain rod where God and your boyfriend can see them. You don’t have to slam dunk the roomie for doing something that she or he has no clue will totally harelip you. In this case, you can offer space on a drying rack placed over in the corner. Compromise usually works just fine and saves face. Eastern cultures have long taken this course where you make a kind offer to change the landscape without stomping all over the plants in the process. With all the self-help books out today and most about how to control the world by changing how you deal with things, you may be totally undone if you play by the rules and then things are still terrible. When I had the roommate from hell, I was taking an interpersonal communication class. We were required to come up with a “change” project. The whole idea was that we would “change” how we interacted so that someone that was doing something that we had problems with would change too. I decided to “change” my interactions with a roommate who would not clean up. The idea was that if I could be assertive (a real buzz word in the 80s, then my roommate would clean up). Before you start to think that I am Martha Stewart-ish, do know that I tolerate a good level of “mess.” Most slobs would not bother me, but my roomie was a tough case. When she slipped a dog in, she covered his poos up with pillows rather than pick them up. I guess her theory was that if you can’t see them you can’t smell them. WRONG. My first goal on that communication project was to trade off on dish washing. This goes back to the “address it from the start” that I mentioned. I washed dishes for the first year and a half. When I put this “share thing” into effect, my roomie said she would help out. Her solution was to hide dirty dishes in a cabinet. By the time these got to smelling really bad, I was the designated dishwasher once again. Fortunately, I did not fail my simple communication project, since I very carefully documented all the attempts I made to get this simple division of labor worked out. It was not going to happen—period. You may be thinking that this is really a minor thing, but it was the beginning of a long haul. When my roomie was out of town, she loaned out her bed to a friend who wanted to get friendly with her boyfriend. This friend (of my roommate) decided to make things romantic by throwing a blanket over the lamp. That caught on fire but did not burn down the place. So, roomie and I had a conversation about loaning out bed space. The final straw was during exam week. Roomie asked me out to “party” for Friday night. I said that I couldn’t go. I needed to study for an 8 am exam for the next morning which I explained. My roomie decided that I couldn’t miss out on this last week party thing, so she moved the party to our room. I ended up having to ask everyone to leave so I could study. This made me look like the bad guy. When I got back from out of town to find stuffed animals going round and round on the stereo turntable and watermelons filled with Vodka and sloshed out all over the floor to clean up, I really was about beyond caring. I just told everyone to leave and told the roommate that I was finding a new roommate for the next year. I thought about sharing this story and decided that I really should. There are times where nothing you do can change things. My roomie got drunk and busted out the bathroom mirror one night when she dropped a contact lens. Then she woke me up to help her find her contact in all the broken glass. She totally wrecked the room after she failed a test. I couldn’t even get the door open with furniture flipped up sideways. She had a shoe throwing fit with a boyfriend who slept with another girl. He was trying to come to the room to talk to her, but she was throwing every shoe she owned (and she had a lot) at him as he came down the hall. I found another roommate after all this. That was a hard move, since I was majoring in communication. I kept thinking roomie and I could talk it out, but we couldn’t. She was from back home, and I hated to bail. I thought everyone would think that I was being mean. Maybe they did, but I didn’t care by the time I moved out. There are some things that you can’t fix on your own. This was one of them. When kids at college come to me now about roommate problems, I try to help them figure out if they have a fixable situation or not. In many cases, it is a simple to work things out. In some cases, it isn’t. There are times when students do need help with the roommate thing. When it reached the point where I could not study, I had to do something different. My roomie flunked out eventually. I didn’t, but I might have if I had stayed in the same room. It’s hard to figure out when you’re in deeper than you can handle, and sometimes it is a good idea to ask for input. Most roommate situations are not extreme. But, if you really are in a fix, please talk to someone you trust. It may be a professor or an RA or your parents. There are ways to make changes if you really need to. I really waited way longer than I should have, because I didn’t know what to do. Moving out was the best thing all round. I was able to get on with my studies and graduate. I’m not sure how things would have turned out if I had stayed on with that first roommate. Yes. This roommate did "make me mad." I did make changes in how I responded. That didn't change decisions the roomate made. You really can't control other people no matter what some of the pop communication texts tell you.  |
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