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unhappy roommate teaches LIFE lessons By Anissa Richmond, Ithaca College
"So…. are you moving out?" I asked timidly while staring at my old roommate. "Um, well, I guess… I'm still deciding…. So…. Maybe." she replied with a roll of her eyes and a hair flip. Oh, the drama. Roommate confrontations during your first year of college are a stress you want to avoid at all costs. Think of it as food poisoning of the psyche. Once it starts, it's almost impossible to stop it from spreading. Inevitably, the drama will make you sick. When I first selected a roommate, I looked for someone similar to me, with similar tastes in music, similar fashion style and similar sleeping habits. The roommate that I chose (let’s call her Bertha) fulfilled all those requirements and seemed like fun. At first. It didn't take long too long for Bertha to show her true colors as the kind of girl I didn't want to live with. What it all came down to was immaturity. Bertha lacked a maturity I didn't think was possible in a college student. Any issues that she had with me or our other roommate (let's call her Jane), Bertha refused to talk about it. She insisted on keeping all of her feelings, both negative and positive, inside where no one knew how she felt. When having a roommate, communication is key. At home, my mom and friends could tell just by looking at me when I was upset, happy or scared. But at school, no one knew my idiosyncratic quirks, and if I didn't voice my issues and concerns absolutely nothing could be done about it. This is something that I learned right away while at school, but something that Bertha did not. I had no idea Bertha wasn't happy in our living situation until the day Jane and I came back to the dorm to find Bertha's mattress gone and all of her things packed into suitcases and hidden away in her closet. When we confronted her about it, Bertha insisted she was fine and refused to talk about it. That is, until the day she moved out without telling us. I don't think Bertha ever would have said anything to us about how upset she was if we hadn't asked her. To make matters worse, Bertha felt the need to speak about me to the other girls in the dorm, saying that I was excluding her purposefully and that I hated her. Ridiculous, right? The incident with Bertha upset me at the time (her moving out meant I would have to pay more for my room), but in the end taught me some pretty beneficial lessons about roommates and myself. I learned that a good roommate isn't necessarily someone exactly like you. My roommate Jane is amazingly opposite from me and we get along wonderfully. Sometimes having someone that was diverse unique as a roommate will force you to evolve as a person. I learned that no matter how uncomfortable it makes you, it's extremely important to be able to talk everything through with your roommate. I strongly believe that things with Bertha, Jane and I would have worked out just fine had Bertha said what was bothering her. I learned that I am a lot stronger than I thought I was, and that not only am I good at stating my point, I'm good at listening to others. But most importantly, Bertha helped me come to terms with the fact that in college you have to be honest with yourself. The scariest part of college is the realization you're alone and only have yourself to rely on. You can't turn to your parents or your best friend to constantly be on your side. Dealing with Bertha was one of the first real "grown-up" things I handled on my own. Past articles
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