Living in student housing, you are typically matched up with up to three roommates depending on the floor plan you choose. That is three other personalities that you can potentially clash with. The majority of off campus student housing is a “lease by bedroom” agreement and usually comes with your own bathroom. The shared spaces are the kitchen living room, and laundry room. Now, as you either know or can imagine roommate matches don’t always work out for the best and you can be stuck with them until the end of your lease term. In my case, I subleased and did not get to use the roommate matching service the apartment complex offers and ended up with three chicks around my age. We all seemed to get along just fine but as the months went on everything fell apart and now I am learning to live with two roommates that hate me. So here are methods I have come up with to survive until the end of our leases. (July 31st)
1. Do not make eye contact.
This only angers the beasts, making direct eye contact makes them feel like you may actually try to have a conversation with them at any second and that makes them super annoyed.
2. Do not offer them food.
Sharing the yummy food you made may sound like a great idea, maybe even a peace offering but they tend to prefer spaghettios or pizza and will scoff at the very idea of eating something you made.
3. Do not love their pets.
Sometimes our roommates like to have furry companions, whatever you do though, do not get attached. If you love them too much the roommates may get jealous and lock the fur babies in their bedrooms when they leave.
4. Don't stay home sick from work.
They may accuse you of being home all day being lazy and yell at you for not emptying the dishwasher… even if you have never used the dishwasher because you hand wash your dishes. They may even throw in their own ailments to make you feel bad for not emptying it while laying in your deathbed all day!
5. Make sure you don't actually use your living room.
My roommates love their TV shows each week and they seemingly are on every night. Sitting in a room where people hate you is usually very awkward and uncomfortable. Shortly after you get home and plop on the couch, one of them may say something like “We will be watching our shows out here soon so you may want to leave” and that is exactly what you should do. If you try to argue with them, you will likely lose. Though the situation is annoying, my room is a cozy safe haven for me anyway.
6. Choose your battles wisely.
We all make little mistakes, its how we handle them that makes all the difference. Did you leave the room and forget to turn the light off? Did you leave a pot in the sink to soak for too long? God forbid you dropped a piece of cheese on the floor and the dog ate it. Whatever the nuisance you caused try your hardest to ignore their feet stomping and hurtful words like “you have no common sense” or “if you left nobody would care” and maybe throw in a little apology. Arguing only angers them more and causes more garbage to fly from their stupid faces. If they are yelling at you in a chat like FB messenger just throw a thumbs up at them. Nothing more just a thumbs up will do, if you do it enough they will shut up.
7. Make sure you take the blame for everything.
“Why is there a random wet spot on the carpet?”
“Yup, that was me.”
“Why did you turn the A/C down to 68 degrees last night?”
“I haven’t been home in two days but yeah sorry won’t happen again.”
“I went to drink from a glass and there was crusty shit on it.”
“I only drink water but sure i‘ll wash it better next time”
Maybe they should hand wash their dishes, because dishwashers suck.
8. Remember you have to live with them.
As much as you may want to build a barrier to their bedroom out of Velveeta or you want to blurt out the spoilers of “Dexter” while they are watching it for the first time… just remember you have to deal with the consequences of pissing them off, which is usually super annoying.
Basically, the best advice I can give you is just avoid them as much as possible, it is way easier. Stick to the FB thumbs up and you will be fine. I am sure either you or they will be moving out at the end of the term and hopefully the next batch of personalities will be a better match.
