Every morning, I'd get ready for my day and have to be concerned if the girl sleeping across the room was being woken up. My music couldn't be too loud, and my guests couldn't be too frequent. When I changed the air temperature, she had to approve it, and when she got in bed, I had to be quiet. It sounds like something you wouldn't want to deal with, but as someone who has never lived alone, it's not that bad.
Until I was 17, I shared rooms with my sister. We'd lived in everything from bunks to a queen to two twins. Some arrangments were tighter than others, but we always managed. Though we didn't always get along, we learned to coexist. And from this, I learned some important skills. Going into college, I was paired with a girl whom I didn't know except for our brief chats online. Our dorm is even tighter than the bedrooms I've shared in the past, but using the skills I developed early on, was able to live very easily alongside someone I'd never even met.
The very first thing I figured out was that you don't always get your way. You have an entire, separate person to consider when doing things and making decisions. From this, I learned about consideration. Consideration can mean letting someone else weigh in on decisions, or it can mean that you do things with them in mind – making sure you aren't too loud, too disruptive or too messy. Watching TV might be a part of your everyday routine, but if you put the other person into consideration it may be the volume is too loud or the show isn't appropriate. Keeping your roommate in mind will limit the number of discussions and fights that you get in. Then again, I'm not saying you won't argue.
Another huge thing I learned was patience, which can mean a multitude of things. Patience when she wakes you up in the mornings, patience when she leaves laundry on the ground, and patience when she sings her heart out during your designated quiet study hour. In these situations, I tended to let my anger get the best of me, and the only thing it accomplished was creating tension between me and my sister. All I had to do was be patient and express my feelings through my words. If I hadn't blown up and gone ballistic, I could've solved the situation through a simple girl-to-girl chat, a tiny bit of compromise, and a really sweet "please."
Speaking of it, the ability to compromise was ultimately the biggest thing I learned during my time with roommates. Within consideration and within patience, there is compromise. When you do something that effects your roommate, compromises always have to be reached. Whether it's something as simple as air temperature to something as big as painting the walls, you will always be making decisions alongside them. Almost everything you do is going to involve a little bit of meeting in the middle.
Ever since I moved into college, these three things have helped me tremendously. These are wildly important skills to become an amiable person who is easy to get along with. Rooming with someone my whole life built my character and made me a better me, so "thank you" to my sister and "nice job" to my mom and dad.
