Sharing living spaces

    It is that time when students are beginning to decide on next year’s living arrangements. As many people have found, choosing a good roommate is numero uno in long-term happiness.
    Whether you choose to room with a best friend or opt to go into a lottery, living in a new environment can be an eye opening experience about yourself and the person you are sharing a space with.
    To make sure you are all on the same level when it comes to how you think the living arrangements ought to go, you and your roommate(s) should have a heart-to-heart and discuss key issues at the beginning, so if issues occur later in the year, they will be easier to address.
    Here are some topics, and real life stories, that you can use to spur a discussion:

What will you and your roommate share?

    Property ownership is a strong reason roommates do not get along. Dogs mark their territory and so do roommates. Discuss food, toiletries and even clothes when indicating what is and is not common ground.
    Amanda Duckworth, a senior marketing major, had a roommate that would help herself to anything.
    “My roommate use to steal my underwear out of the dryer,” Duckworth said, “and she stole a pair of $200 jeans.”
    Lauren Schmus, a senior management major, had a roommate who wouldn’t share anything.
    “My roommate would keep her pots and pans under her bed,” Schmus said. “Anytime we used her stuff, she would come bang on our doors and yell at us.”

How important is being clean to you and your roommate?
   
    If your space shows you are OCD or that you are a run-off of the city dump, your roommate needs to know and vice-versa.
    Kelsey Croyle, a sophomore English and journalism major, got into huge arguments with her roommates over cleanliness.
    “I’ve gotten into screaming fights because my roommates don’t clean,” Croyle said. “They said they were going to pick it up, but they weren’t. I’ve lived with my roommates for two years. We’re separating now, and it’s made us closer. We were too close of friends to live together.”

How do you and your roommate handle responsibilities?

    Already having a job or bills can give you a clear indication on what you will be like with responsibilities, such as paying the power bill on time so it doesn’t get turned off.
    Sarah Dunn, a senior marketing major, now lives by herself because her roommates were not reliable.
    “I don’t have any good roommate stories,” Dunn said. “The main issues were cleanliness and bills. I wasn’t clean, and they didn’t pay the bills on time.”

    Answering these questions may help you decide if your future roommate is a match for you. If you are armed with the knowledge that your roommate is a slob who doesn’t pay bills on time, you can’t get mad when it happens. Over all, just being aware and understanding of each other will help immensely in the long run.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 1 2008. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry