The Secret To Having Roommates
Jan. 22nd, 2011 03:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ifeelbetterI've had something like five or six different roommates in the past two years (not at the same time) and I am consistently amazed by how the same dumbasseries (not a word but go with me for a bit, you'll see why I needed it) keep cropping up. I am compiling this useful list of things that will make living with other people who are not family or spouses so much easier for everyone. They're simple rules. Common-sense, even.
1. If something is annoying you that one of your roommates is doing, do not tell them about it. You make it work for you.
This may seem sort of backwards but let's break it down.
(a) If you're annoyed by something trivial, chances are so are they. You hate the way they put the bowls away, they hate the way you don't turn on the dishwasher right away. It evens out in the wash.
(b) If your response to that is, "But if we both aired our grievances, we'd both change our behavior and everyone would be happy." Sorry, no. You're not spouses or family, ergo you have no claim to change their behavior. What will happen, though, is that you will start a passive aggressive war with each other now, knowing the particular thing will make them angry and assuming they are doing the thing you hate specifically to make you angry. The truth is: habits have been formed. You are already adults. It's not changing now.
(c) As another twist, your righteous anger is--shocking, I know--not righteous. So you put the bowls that way. That doesn't make it the correct way. Your roommate may have completely legitimate reasons for doing it differently. In fact, it may turn out that their anger is the righteous one and you've just not seen the logic all along. Unless you think only your opinions are right, you should just take care of the things that annoy you. Starting the dishwasher is amazingly easy. Just push the button.
2. Notes, e-mails, hints, etc. are all bad ideas. All the time, no exceptions.
There is no way to phrase a complaint that isn't going to end good relations in the house. Good relations are vastly more important than whether the garbage is a little overflowing. I cannot stress that enough. If you don't get along with your roommates, there is no solution. One (or all) of you will have to move out. And is the hassle of moving commensurate to just taking the garbage out yourself? No, it's really not. You might be irritable for an hour after having to do it, but you'll have hell on Earth from the complaint through to the move-out day the other way around.
The summary of the other two: Think of the group first.
Why would you assume your thoughts/feelings are more important than anyone else's? If it's not too much of an inconvenience to you--flipping a switch on the dishwasher, adding the dish towels to your load of laundry, doing your own wipe-down of surfaces before you begin to cook--why would you make the whole house unhappy and, in the process, exacerbate the problem?
These are roommate rules, mind. When it's a spouse or a family member, everything changes. You actually can demand that a spouse/PoSLQ/partner/whatever breaks the habit of putting their underwear in the middle of the floor of the bedroom you share or that your brother stop stealing your hairbrush. This is because the relationship is fundamentally different: (a) you're together for the long haul, not just through the end of the lease and (b) you have a connection between you that actually matters and has weight. Your roommate, no matter how good a friend, is temporary and has a very different sense of what you are to them. There are edges to what you can and can't take from a roommate that are far closer than that of spouses or family members. You can very easily push too far--and you can do it in one passive-aggressive e-mail.
Sorry, needed to get that off my chest and--as I probably made clear--I don't want to have a rage black-out with an actual roommate. The internet is a much safer place for blowing off steam.
PS - How mean is it that the roommate in question is making my week awful when I have prelims in five days? I mean, really. Wait till next week. I will deal with your dumbassery next week.
1. If something is annoying you that one of your roommates is doing, do not tell them about it. You make it work for you.
This may seem sort of backwards but let's break it down.
(a) If you're annoyed by something trivial, chances are so are they. You hate the way they put the bowls away, they hate the way you don't turn on the dishwasher right away. It evens out in the wash.
(b) If your response to that is, "But if we both aired our grievances, we'd both change our behavior and everyone would be happy." Sorry, no. You're not spouses or family, ergo you have no claim to change their behavior. What will happen, though, is that you will start a passive aggressive war with each other now, knowing the particular thing will make them angry and assuming they are doing the thing you hate specifically to make you angry. The truth is: habits have been formed. You are already adults. It's not changing now.
(c) As another twist, your righteous anger is--shocking, I know--not righteous. So you put the bowls that way. That doesn't make it the correct way. Your roommate may have completely legitimate reasons for doing it differently. In fact, it may turn out that their anger is the righteous one and you've just not seen the logic all along. Unless you think only your opinions are right, you should just take care of the things that annoy you. Starting the dishwasher is amazingly easy. Just push the button.
2. Notes, e-mails, hints, etc. are all bad ideas. All the time, no exceptions.
There is no way to phrase a complaint that isn't going to end good relations in the house. Good relations are vastly more important than whether the garbage is a little overflowing. I cannot stress that enough. If you don't get along with your roommates, there is no solution. One (or all) of you will have to move out. And is the hassle of moving commensurate to just taking the garbage out yourself? No, it's really not. You might be irritable for an hour after having to do it, but you'll have hell on Earth from the complaint through to the move-out day the other way around.
The summary of the other two: Think of the group first.
Why would you assume your thoughts/feelings are more important than anyone else's? If it's not too much of an inconvenience to you--flipping a switch on the dishwasher, adding the dish towels to your load of laundry, doing your own wipe-down of surfaces before you begin to cook--why would you make the whole house unhappy and, in the process, exacerbate the problem?
These are roommate rules, mind. When it's a spouse or a family member, everything changes. You actually can demand that a spouse/PoSLQ/partner/whatever breaks the habit of putting their underwear in the middle of the floor of the bedroom you share or that your brother stop stealing your hairbrush. This is because the relationship is fundamentally different: (a) you're together for the long haul, not just through the end of the lease and (b) you have a connection between you that actually matters and has weight. Your roommate, no matter how good a friend, is temporary and has a very different sense of what you are to them. There are edges to what you can and can't take from a roommate that are far closer than that of spouses or family members. You can very easily push too far--and you can do it in one passive-aggressive e-mail.
Sorry, needed to get that off my chest and--as I probably made clear--I don't want to have a rage black-out with an actual roommate. The internet is a much safer place for blowing off steam.
PS - How mean is it that the roommate in question is making my week awful when I have prelims in five days? I mean, really. Wait till next week. I will deal with your dumbassery next week.
