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5 Subtle Ways to Make Your Roommates Hate You
From the perspective of the annoyed roommate.
It’s safe to say my roommate situation hasn’t been great this year. The chaos of leaving and returning to college all through a pandemic is already intense enough, but the universe has decided to graciously give me the wonderful gift that is shitty roommates.
Yes, bad roommates. We’ve all had one at one point or another, and if you never have, either you’re incredibly lucky or no one has told you the truth yet.
I was assigned random roommates at the beginning of my third year in university. Upon moving into my college apartment, things seem to be cordial and harmonious from the get-go. But as time went on, parts of my roomie’s behaviors and personalities started to poke out more and have made me question moving out.
If you may be stepping into a new living situation soon, take note of some of these things to avoid to prevent putting yourself in the middle of a battlefield with your roommates.
You Don’t Share Common Areas
This is what inspired this entire story to begin with. Even after multiple conversations, one of my roommates is notorious for monopolizing all of the space in the fridge and freezer. I haven’t cooked a real dinner in weeks, but you can find her half-eaten McFlurry in there along with towers of frozen ingredients.
Feeling like you don’t have a fair share of common spaces such as kitchens, living rooms, and bathrooms can get old fast. If you notice that you are the only one cooking, the only one getting ready in the bathroom, or the only one watching your favorite show on the living room couch, it might be worth evaluating if something you use daily has any structured form of it being everyone's.
You Confront Your Problems Indirectly or Not at All
Every time one of my roommates has an issue, it’s never a conversation but instead a game of telephone. Person A will have a problem with Person B and will talk about the problem to Person C, who later gives their misconstrued interpretation of what was said to Person B.
