Roommate Living 101
By Kami L. Rice
In the now-many years since I made the break from home and traipsed off to college, I’ve lived with about a million different people. And that’s barely an overstatement. The number is up to nearly 40 different roommates (39 to be exact, but who’s counting?) plus two pet roommate dogs. That’s a football team’s worth of different personalities (and some mascots too) and living styles to adjust around.
And all that rotation of roommates could be a recipe for some roommate horror stories. Surely you’ve all heard them: roommates who don’t pay their bills, roommates who let gross things grow on dishes in the kitchen sink, roommates who throw big parties the night before your early-morning job interview, roommates who raid your food stash, and, worse, roommates who steal, kill and destroy (your heirloom furniture inherited from Great Grandma Pearl).
Perhaps I’ve won the roommate lottery a whole lot of times because, amazingly, I don’t have any real horror stories to tell. Some comedies, yes. Some dramas, for sure. Some mysteries, perhaps. But no real horrors. Though likewise no fairy tales either. My mom can attest that all these years of roommates have held plenty of moments of frustration for me (that’s the drama part). And my mom’s ears were often the first ones to learn about those moments (or days) of frustration. But in the end most of the frustrations were either resolved or forgotten, and I and the roommates parted as friends. And I’m still in touch with almost all of them, some more regularly than others, of course. That makes for a very long mailing list come time for Christmas cards.
Along the way of dealing with those frustrations, I’ve learned some good things about living with other people. Not least among these lessons is the reality that living well with others takes a lot of work. Much of that work is really common sense, but we humans aren’t always very good at practicing common sense, especially in the sometimes volatile relationships with those we live with. So here are a few tips for living well with your roommates if you’re still in that stage of life where your living room furniture never matches because it belongs to three different people and you’re never quite sure what kitchen gadgets you’ve got to work with or who borrowed your favorite DVD.
Communicate what’s bothering you.
This is better for everyone. If you don’t like something your roommate does or doesn’t do, either tell them or get over it. It’s not fair to your roommate for you to harbor some sort of anger and never give them a chance to correct the situation. And when you tell them about it, use tact and kindness, even if you’re confronting them about something weighty. Listen to their response. Seek a resolution that works.
At the end of one of my year-long leases, one of my roommates suddenly lashed out at me. As everyone was moving out, I discovered the other three roommates felt like I hadn’t held up my end of the cleaning chores. But no one said anything to me about it, until it was too late for me to make any changes because the lease was up. I’d been insanely busy that year, and my cleaning plan tends to be clean-as-you-go so things never get very dirty and then you don’t need deep cleaning very often. Apparently this wasn’t working for them. But they never told me that.
If everyone in the house harbors these silent angers, it becomes an unsafe place to live. You’re always wondering what you’re doing wrong—even if nothing’s wrong—because you can’t trust that anyone’s going to tell you and give you a chance to fix it, apologize, or explain your side. Don’t do this to your roommates.
Leaving notes can be bad.
With the busy lives people lead, it can be easy to go for lengthy stretches of time in which you rarely see your roommates. This can make communicating in person hard to do, so sometimes roommates resort to leaving notes or sending emails. Be very careful about this means of communication. It can be misunderstood very easily and create a bigger problem than the minor “infraction” that started the whole note exchange. It can also be an unhealthy, passive way of dealing with conflict. I’ve seen this again and again with roommates. If it’s that important, set a time to talk with your roommate or perhaps catch them by phone. It’s worth the extra effort to keep the air clear.
As often as possible, set clear expectations.
The more things can be made clear at the beginning of living together, the better. Try to decide household details on the front end and make sure everyone understands and agrees to them: from how you’re going to pay for dish soap and toilet paper and light bulbs to when money for bills is due to who’s going to contact the landlord about the spider infestation, from whether you’ll have an open door policy for guests to whether you’re going to share milk to what temperature you’ll keep the thermostat at. Sometimes it feels overly formal to people to hash out these details together, and some roommates really don’t like doing it, but everything’s happier in the long run for having as many clear expectations for life together as possible.
Don’t forget about having fun together!
Home life is much more enjoyable when you like the people you’re living with. But how can you like them if you don’t get to know them? Try to spend time with your roommates on some sort of regular basis, talking about life or just watching a movie together. If you don’t naturally cross paths at home very often, schedule time together, like you do with other friends. The conflicts that do arise will be easier to resolve when there’s a basis of friendship to depend on.
Some of my best memories are of long conversations with roommates or spontaneous movie and brownie sundae nights. Roommate life has gifted me with some amazing friendships with people I likely never would have known had we not all been connected as housemates. Many of those friendships are deeper for having weathered the inevitable conflicts that arise when people live together. When you work at the relationships with each other, roommates can provide an important place of nurture and support when you’re still living the single life.
To read more by Kami Rice, check out kamirice.blogspot.com.
