Collegiate Times

He said

I specifically remember the interaction I had after putting the key into the door of my Lee Hall dorm room for the first time — the handshake followed by the thought of, “Man, this guy looked cooler on Facebook.” Then there’s the awkward first conversation about the drive in.

Maybe your initial interaction with your freshman year roommate went similar to mine, or maybe you already knew yours from high school. Either way, you undoubtedly went through a similar yearlong journey with more ups and downs than the elevator in Slusher Tower.

Sure, you guys are overly friendly the first few weeks, but soon you have to catch yourself from blurting things out. “Oh, don’t worry, I’ll get the trash even though I’ve taken it out every single time.” Then when it comes to sleeping arrangements you have to bite your tongue so you don’t utter, “Sure, I’ll sleep in the study lounge, bro. You have fun with your ‘friend’ that always seems to only come over after 2 a.m.”

But then you snap. At this point you take one of two routes: the confrontational or the passive approach. The confrontational person will blow up and attack the roommate. The floodgates open as every little bump in the road comes out. This often leads to many awkward situations from then onward.

Then there is the passive approach. This involves roommates just going about their lives without saying anything and often results in a lot of muttering under the breath and behind the back complaints. I cannot say this is any better, as it will almost certainly lead you to being trampled on time and time again.

Hopefully you can find an approach in the middle of the two extremes that will lead to a more peaceful relationship. My only advice to surviving a roommate horror story is to be both honest and stern.

Be honest with each other, especially when it comes to what bothers you. This will at least allow you to understand the problems, even if one party is unwilling to fix them. This is why you also must be stern. Doing so will prevent you from being pushed around and taken advantage of.

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A version of this article appeared in the Sep 17 issue of the Collegiate Times.