Today has been one of those days that roommates really get on my nerves, and I decided to turn that anger into a productive and informative blog post instead!
Do you ever have those days where you want to strangle your roomies?! If you're in the college program or not, it's important to learn how to live with different people because EVERYONE has weird quirks that don't jive with others.
Here's a few real life situations for you folks to read who are dealing with stubborn, awkward, and weird roommates too. Along with the lessons I learned from each one:
Roommate #1: SO freshman year of college I had this one roommate. We met on Facebook and became the best of friends quickly. Little did I know, she was a selfish only child (not all only children are, but this was a particular case of selfishness) and on top of that, the most hypocritical person I had ever met. She would pretend she got horrible migraines… whether she really did or not, I'll never know. My friends and I would be talking in the hallway, and she would open the door and scream at us. SCREAM. Telling us to whisper. I don't think I've ever been yelled at like that. Still to this day, when I think about it, I shake in my boots a little bit. It was scary, and that was the beginning to a long road of uncertainty which would make for the worst freshman college experience you could ever imagine.
She would come in late at night and be as loud as possible - stumbling over everything, rocking in her chair, eating chips, turning on the tv, etc. Any and every kind of noise you could imagine came out of this girl. She would snore and grind her teeth at night to top it all off. Besides the noise came the strange necessity to stay cold.
We would sit at our desks, and she would open the window in the middle of winter when it was 30 degrees and raining out - saying that she was "burning up". I told her to take some layers off if she was so hot, and she went into the closet and took off almost all of her clothes and came out saying "I'm still hot and the window is staying open". Now, I'm the type of person who wants to please everyone and I avoid confrontation at all costs, but when it comes to feeling like I was living in Antarctica, or like hell hath frozen over I didn't know how much more I could take.
Instead of listening to my concerns of being cold, I would come home to our room (with nobody there) and both window wide open and rain soaking in the window sill :( Finally, this charming roommate would start watching tv without headphones every single night until 1am just to drive me nuts. It came to blows and we had an all out fight one night when I couldn't get any shut eye.
I can't tell you how many times I cried or tried to have our RA fix our problems. Nothing worked, and this is when I finally decided to move out. I had had enough to say the least.
I look back on this experience and think of how horrible I felt. Even if I received good grades, I didn't feel like myself any more. I was sad and stressed out ALL the time. It wasn't until I moved out that I was actually happy again.
Moral of this story: If you feel uncomfortable at ALL, or threatened by your roommate in any way - like not wanting to come back to your room (I sat in the library crying one day because I didn't wanna go back to my room) MOVE AS FAST AS YOU CAN. Don't wait it out. Don't say to yourself, "Hey I can make this work". No. Don't waste your time child. Don't be stubborn like me. Just MOVE. Girls can be downright mean, and no matter how many times you tell yourself that if you're just positive enough, or nice enough it will all work out, it won't and it's time to move on to happier and better things. Especially if you're working at the Happiest place on earth… It won't make a difference if you come home to negativity and icky-ness. You'll wanna come home to a safe haven so make sure you move in with happier more positive people :)
Roommate #2: Freshman year, Spring Term. This girl, we'll call her Alaska, ended up getting super drunkie one night, got sick all over the rug, and peed on my clothes (in her drunken stupor). Don't believe me?! I know it sounds crazy, but it happened … She was a much nicer roommate though so I let it slide.
Moral of the story: Sometimes your roommates do stupid things. If it's an easy (or gross) clean up, then talk about it and move on - unless of course crazy things like this happen all the time, then don't let it slide.
Roommate #3: Sophomore year, living in my sorority. This girl was one of my most favorite people ever. She was hardly ever there, but when she was, she sometimes wore my clothes without asking. It drove me a little nuts, but she also let me wear her clothes too - so it wasn't so bad after all. She was the best roommate I ever had and now that I think about it, I wish we were still roommates.
Moral of the story: Hold onto your favorite roommates - The ones that don't get on your nerves will be your saving grace.
Roommate #4: This girl broke up with her boyfriend halfway through one of the terms and moved ALL of her stuff back into my room. Lamps, side tables, cushions, etc. - leaving no room to walk. This roommate is still one of my really good friends, and this is because of the way I addressed the issue. I let her know that I needed more room to live stress free. Even though I understood her situation, it still wasn't necessary to bring her excess crap into my life as well. Since she respected our friendship, she cleaned up the room that night, and I woke up to a sparkling clean room. Me = Happy.
Moral of this story: If there is something that is bothering you, tell your roommate! If they don't clean up after themselves, tell them that it bugs you (IN PERSON). Don't do it over text or an email or a fb message. Using your words is the best bet for it to come across as nice and not mean or angry sounding.
Roommate #5, 6, 7, and 8: (I live in a big house this year) I lived in a sorority for two years and thought that living with four other people would be a breeze. WRONG. Very wrong. When you throw a roommate in there that has OCD then you're in for it. One roommate in particular likes to "organize" the refrigerator and moves all of my groceries to the back, and disperses it on different shelves - making it difficult to find things when I'm trying to cook. This drives me up a wall! I like to have all my groceries in the same place and she keeps moving them around when I'm not here. Even when I've asked her multiple times not to, she keeps moving them. She leaves rude messages on our whiteboard about not putting pots and pans in the dishwasher, and basically treats us all like we are children. This, my friends, is the roommate you don't want to deal with. Today, I took my destiny into my own hands which comes to the moral of this little story…
Moral of story: I bought my own Mini Fridge today… You might be asking yourself, What does that have to do with anything? and my response to that is EVERYTHING! Take your destiny into your own hands, people! I went and bought my own fridge to put my own food in so that my roommate (who doesn't feel like listening to me) can't say a word. When you can't go through the mountain, go around. Now, if you're dealing with something similar to this, then buying a fridge might not be the easiest solution for you, but be creative. Come up with ideas that will work for everybody and compensate when you can. It's everyone's house at the end of the day, and people don't want you touching their things without asking. Respect each other from the very beginning and you won't have many problems in the near future.
Remember these morals of my different roommate horror stories, and you too can be happy with your roommates or future roommates :)
Since you'll be living with a bunch of people for 5 or more months it's important to get along and have a HAPPY space to come home to.
Love you all!
Have a magical day.
xoxo
Love & Pixie Dust
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