Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries
I cannot even emphasise this enough – have boundaries. Don’t go rushing off sharing everything you have out of excitement.
My first year at the university taught me that. I was so excited to finally be in the university that the first roommate I had immediately had express access to everything I had, no questions asked.
When getting something for myself, I will get for my roommate and I never realised that I was the only one doing the sharing.She will come to me with her needs and I will happily jump in to answer her.
This roommate will open my locker and help herself to whatever she needed and I won’t even complain.
I remember one time I attempted to take something out of her locker and she violently slammed it and told me never to try opening her locker again.
I got broke fast, my foodstuff finished and after that, this roommate started coming up with reasons why she didn’t want to talk to me. I eventually figured out it was so that she wouldn’t have to share her food with me.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you shouldn’t share with your roommates, you should share, but you need to be smart about it, have boundaries.
Be willing to compromise
You and your roommate are very different.You don’t come from the same background or have the same home training.
A roommate may have excellent eating habits.You know, they close their mouth when eating, their cutlery doesn’t constantly clash with their plates, some even use their fork and knives. You just love to be around them when eating because you won’t feel like you want to throw up.
And then, there are roommates that will eat as though their lives depend on it.They eat very noisily with an open mouth so you see food debris flying around as they eat!
For such roommates, you just have to be willing to compromise: Close your ears to the noise, use your earpiece, or better still excuse yourself when your roommate is eating.
You and your roommate are going to be living together for a while, so you can’t always pick a fight during every meal.
Just let it go
Sometimes you just have to let it go.For some people, following these ground rules is easier said than done.You will eventually find out that complaining does little or nothing, and it can also be very stressful trying to make people do things for the benefit of others.
Remember that everyone cannot be like you so you need to let go and do the ones that you can do.
Lastly, don’t kill your roommate (I DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS PART)
Remember, there is no Wi-Fi in jail so don’t kill your roommates.
