The Roommate Honeymoon is Almost Over
As September rolls into October, millions of honeymoons will end. Roommates who once lived together in bliss will break up. Fights will erupt. Names will be called. Silent treatments will start. And unfortunately, thousands of shoes in closets might get peed in (as payback). But this all can be avoided. The honeymoon doesn’t have to end.
In case you’re not familiar with the roommate honeymoon, it’s the initial time period of unconditional love when roommates can do no wrong. A roommate could talk on the phone all night, have sex on another roommate’s bed, borrow clothing, fart, burp, download porn, drink, smoke up, and party in the room with random people, and most new roommates will say nothing – at least to their roommate. Instead, they will complain to friends, family, and even strangers. They will send texts, write email, and launch a “Why My Roommate Sucks” blog. But tell the roommate? Forget it. As the weeks pass and roommates find friends outside the room, being kind and courteous to a roommate from hell matters less and less. No longer needing the roommate to be a friend and having friends outside the room make it easier to be honest. And that’s when the venom spills. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Confrontations can be conversations.
How, you ask? For this to happen, a precedent must be set early on in the roommate relationship. Each roommate must agree that if something makes the other uncomfortable, that roommate will share the problem before it becomes a bigger problem. When a situation comes up, rather than telling everyone but the roommate, the problem must be addressed. Roommates have to agree not to be defensive, but rather, to listen and thank each other for being honest enough to adhere to the rules. Keeping this in mind, when a problem arises, it’s essential to be clear about the problem. No dancing around the issues in the name of kindness. For example, if your roommate is having sex in the room while you’re sleeping and you don’t want to listen or watch (as a roommate in the same room, you do have a right to watch), don’t just tell your roommate, “So, I heard you last night and it was weird.” Instead say exactly what happened and how you feel about it. For example, “Last night made me extremely uncomfortable. You see, it makes me uncomfortable to listen to you have sex on top of my head (assuming it was on the top bunk). Please do not have sex on top of my head next time. Thanks, roommie!”
Assuming a precedent has been set; your roommate will respect your feelings and work out a system to avert further uncomfortable times. As a rule, roommates who want to get along will get along. And to get along, you have to be comfortable talking about what makes you uncomfortable, something few roommates are comfortable doing.
- Harlan, Editor-in-Chief, The Naked Roommate
September 12th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
This is very true. Everything has been cool, but two days ago my roomates and I sat down to pay each other back regarding groceries. It was a little tense, and we\’re used to everything being cool with each other with no stress (besides no one has done anything alarming yet). Yet I only expect money situations to grow in stress among us if we can\’t nip this in the bud. Awesome book by the way, my freshmen rhetoric class uses your book. UTD whoosh!
-Josh, a freshman at the University of Texas at Dallas
October 8th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Most of this is very true. However, some of us, myself included, have the unfortunate situation of a roommate who believes in confrontation…if she feels in control. Some people just don’t respect others and that can be extremely difficult when living in a roommate situation.
October 8th, 2007 at 8:21 am
Unfortunately, being way too passive-aggressive myself, I let something that was pretty small slide for far too long and ended up hating my roommate for the rest of the year, even after the problem was addressed. Thankfully, this year I got a bedroom all to myself. I can’t stand people snoring anyway.
October 8th, 2007 at 5:44 pm
How ironic…This is a problem I’ve been battling for the last week. My roommate and I have been the best of friends, and finally, five weeks into the school year, I began feeling miserable and can trace almost all of those feelings back to her…For someone as aggressive as myself, I hate confrontation, so she hasn’t figured out for herself that what she does bothers me, and I haven’t explained it to her, either…In fact, she’s sitting behind me on her computer and I keep looking over my shoulder to make sure she isn’t reading what I’m typing. I kind of hope she will though. It’s good to see other people identify with how I feel. Thanks!
October 9th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
[…] As September rolls into October, millions of honeymoons will end. Roommates who once lived together in bliss will break up. Fights will erupt. Names will be called. Silent treatments will start. And unfortunately, thousands of shoes in closets might get peed in (as payback). But this all can be avoided. The honeymoon doesn’t have to end. In case you’re not familiar with the roommate honeymoon, it’s the initial time period of unconditional love when roommates can do no wrong. A roommate could talk on the phone all night, have sex on another roommate’s bed, borrow clothing, fart, burp, download porn, drink, smoke up, and party in the room with random people, and most new roommates will say nothing - at least to their roommate. Instead, they will complain to friends, family, and even strangers. continue reading […]
October 9th, 2007 at 6:42 pm
This is so true, except that I haven’t yet been confronted! Though I am in a single room, I have five suitemates, and get along with two of them very well, and one doesn’t seem to have a real problem with me. The other two, however, have apparently started talking about me behind my back, and have decided that their personalities don’t “mesh” with mine. The irony, of course, is that of my five suitemates, it is the two that know the least about me, and have made the least attempt to get to know me, that feel this way!
October 19th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Right on Harlan! I have seen this way too often as students get frustrated, and don’t address the little things…they add up and then you are stuck saying “arrrgghhhh!” The best thing is, to not let everything go for so long. Also, it’s okay to not like everything about your roommate, it’s probably the first time you have lived with someone besides your family, so it’s bound to happen. In High school you usually saw everyone at your best, and in college, people see you as you are, all the good and challenging parts about you..