Going to college and learning how to live with another person can be tricky, especially since most students are used to having their own rooms and personal spaces. Girls in particular put emphasis on finding the perfect roommate with whom they can get along with and live harmoniously.
Unfortunately, no matter how close you are, every pair of college girl roommates will fight or bicker about something at some point. Fighting is not always a bad thing; it allows you to relieve tension and reveal what your true feelings are about a certain matter.
Living in such close-quarters pretty much guarantees a few fights here and there, but most of the time they are nothing to worry about and simply require a little bit of communication and compromise.
1. Stealing Clothes
This fight is so typical among girls that I would be willing to bet that it will happen at least ten times during the school year. Every girl understands the struggle though—you go into your closet for the perfect party outfit, only to decide that you have absolutely nothing to wear! When this happens in a college dorm, the temptation to sneak a peek into your roommate’s closet is almost too strong to bear.
While most of the time it is common for roommates to share clothes, sometimes your roommate might not be so inclined to let her closet be dissected by you or anyone else, leading to a blowout fight about how you need to respect each other’s belongings.
Fighting over this topic is extremely common because when you live in the same room as someone, you are surrendering a great deal of privacy, therefore making it difficult to know where to draw the line to separate your own lives from each other’s.
If (or to be more accurate, when) this fight occurs, don’t panic—clothing fights will not ruin your relationship with your roommate; however, once you both cool down, you should get together and set some boundaries within your room that work for the both of you.
2. Waking Each Other Up
The hardest part about living with another person is accommodating their schedule as well as yours. If you have an 8 a.m. class while your roommate doesn’t start until noon, there are bound to be some conflicts.
This particular fight usually stems from sheer frustration on your roommate’s part. There is nothing you can do about your class schedule, and she knows that, but nonetheless, she is still frustrated with being woken up by an alarm at 7 a.m. every day of the week.
You might find it difficult to resolve this fight, because there is not a whole lot you can do about it. The most important thing is to emphasize the idea of compromising. Maybe you could suggest that your roommate sleep with earplugs in, while you could vow to be as quiet as possible while you get ready for class.
Plus, it hardly matters anyway, as after you have both adjusted to each other’s schedules, many of these types of fights will resolves themselves throughout the year.
3. Locking Each Other Out
Most of the time this is an honest mistake, but it can still cause you and your roommate to butt heads from time to time. Maybe one of you grew up never locking the door, while the other always does; regardless of the reason, locking each other out at one point or another is basically inevitable.
The best way to solve this dispute is to come up with some sort of system. Maybe attaching your keys to your wallets or backpacks can help you to avoid this fight in the future.
You both should make sure you don’t overreact about a fight as minuscule as this. Putting yourself in the other person’s shoes and seeing the situation from her perspective will help you two overcome these kinds of trivial arguments.
4. Cleaning Your Side of the Room
Even if you try to find someone with the same level of cleanliness as yourself, there will be times when one of you is definitely slacking when it comes to cleaning your side of the room.
As a roommate, you have to find the line between being lenient and overbearing when it comes to your roommate’s mess. You can’t act like her mother and get on her about every little mess, but there comes a point when you do need to remind her that you live there too and there is only so much mess you can handle.
You two could designate a day of the week for cleaning in which you both set aside some time to take care of the place in which you live. Doing this will make sure that neither of you goes crazy from living in each other’s filth, and you will both be proud to show off your room to your friends and guests.
5. Inviting Guests Over
Speaking of friends and guests, it is definitely common to fight over having people over to your room. If you’re trying to study, the last thing you want is a bunch of your roommate’s friends cramped into your tiny dorm room. If the two of you don’t discuss each other’s feelings on guests, you are guaranteed to fight about it at some point.
You should always ask your roommate if she is okay with you bringing some friends over before you do so, just to make sure that you are respecting the fact that it is her room as well.
Both of you need to be flexible about this subject given that you share the room, but there is no reason why the two of you can’t work out a system that you are both comfortable with.
Roomie squabbles happen to everyone, so don’t beat yourself up if you do something that causes some tension in your room. The most important thing to remember is that you share the room equally, so both of your feelings and opinions hold the same amount of value. Keep communicating throughout the year and don’t let a few small arguments get you down; you will only have one freshman year roommate in your life, so make the most of it!
