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We Don’t Know: What Does it Mean to be a Good Roommate?

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I recently stumbled across the awesome How To Adult video below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNI1fWTlGwY

To sum up their seven tips for being a highly effective roommate:

Tip #1: Set the rules early on.

Tip #2: Have a monthly status meeting.

Tip #3: Be consistent.

Tip #4: Be generous.

Tip #5: Remember that this isn’t “your apartment.” It’s “your and your roommate’s apartment.”

Tip #6: Keep the lines of communication open.

Tip #7: Prepare in advance for possibly parting ways with your roommate.

I think these are awesome rules for living in peace with a non-related human being.  I’ve somewhat successfully lived in my four-bedroom house with a fairly consistent cast of characters for almost three years now, and I think Tip #6 is pretty much the savior of our lives.

But sometimes I wonder if being neat and tidy and nice and polite is good enough to be considered a “good roommate.”  Certainly it makes you an unobtrusive cohabitant.  But if cohabitant is really as far as the relationship goes: there’s no feeling of family or relationship.  So what exactly is the definition of good roommate?

The reason I wonder about this is probably borne from my own insecurity of being a bad roomie.  On a typical night, my fiancé and I come home from a long day at work and go straight upstairs to my bedroom, where I do some UE maintenance for a bit, he finishes up some remaining work, then I pass out without remembering to take out my contacts, and he plays video games for a couple hours before shutting off the light.

Other than occasionally running into my fellow house-dwellers in the kitchen or living room, my main interaction is the somewhat-daily photo that I spam them of our kitchen sink.  I call it the #NagPic, and they’re unusually nice about my insane neuroticism.  (In my defense, it’s incredibly effective at reminding people of their ice cream dish from 3 am last night, but I really don’t recommend it for households of not-incredibly-chill people.)

On the other side of the spectrum, UE writer Emily Knight used to live in this fabulous house where each roommate made dinner once per week and they all sat down and ate together.  This absolutely blows my mind.  How quaint!  How tight-knit!  How envy-inducing!  Just hearing about it inspired fantasies in my head of 1950s-esque hairdos and someone wearing a cute apron from Modcloth.  (I’m not even going to go into all the bike rides, pumpkin carving, and Christmas tree decorating that went on in that utopia of friendship.)

Admirable as it is, it’s just not feasible in my life.  Does that make me a bad roommate?  Probably not.  Does walking upstairs with no acknowledgement of my cohabitants other than “hey” make me a bad roommate?  Probably.  I think it depends on your definition.

While I’m still deciding whether I’m okay with my definition, what’s yours—and are you okay with it? Share your enlightenment in the comments.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Photo by Sara Slattery

Relationships

Avoiding Roommate Drama

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The joys and follies of living with roommates are many and varied. On one hand, you have things like cheaper rent, people to always hang out with, and new friendships that can last a lifetime. On the flipside, you may have to put up with things like less parking, less time to sleep in before work if you want to take a shower, and a daily morning obstacle course of your roommate’s passed-out friends from partying the night before. Whether for better or worse, many of us have to live with roommates at least once in our lifetime. In this article, I’m going to give you a set of guidelines that have helped me resolve issues that otherwise could have resulted in a huge headache for everybody involved.

Imagine something that your roommate does to annoy you. It might be something in the spectrum of forgetting to turn off the TV or rarely doing dishes. No matter what the issue is, the next time you get mad, rather than charging in and confronting them about it, I want you to stop and ask yourself the first of several questions:

Does it happen regularly? The answer to this may dictate the future of your relationship. If the answer is “no,” I suggest you drop the issue and give your roommate the benefit of the doubt that they made an honest mistake. If the answer is “yes,” then move on to the next question.

Is it something I can fix on my own? I find that, more often than not, the thing that is annoying you can be completely overcome by doing a little creative critical thinking. For example, if the house is messy, maybe you need to create a new system of cleaning or hire a once-a-month cleaning service. No matter what your problem is, put a bit of constructive thought into solving the problem. If after wracking your brain for a peaceful solution is unsuccessful, you may ask yourself the next question.

Am I willing to move out if this problem is not solved? The answer to this question puts the importance of your dilemma to the test. If you are not bothered enough by the situation dedicate the effort to finding a new home (while likely burn bridges in the process), you should probably take a deep breath and let it slide. If you find that the issue is so unbearable that you can’t possibly live with it any longer, move on to the next final question.

Will my roommate be open and receptive to a conversation or does he/she get defensive? Now, you are going to have to make a real judgment call. You must ask yourself if your roommate is someone who takes criticism easily and makes an honest effort to change, or if he/she is someone who will likely scoff in your direction and try to bother you even more or shut down and give you the silent treatment. The reason this step is so delicate is that people tend to attach to their behaviors: no matter how persuasive you are in telling them that their behavior may not be acceptable to everyone, they may take the constructive criticism with a dosage of contempt. Some people are good at brushing it off, while others may take it to heart, depending on how much they value the actions in question.

Discussing the Situation

If you decide that you cannot live with your roommate’s behavior but a discussion is not worth the risk, I suggest you begin looking for a new place to live and try to end things on a good note. However, if you can, try to approach your roommate politely and diplomatically so that you can work on solving your predicament together. Be prepared with a couple of solutions to suggest. If you and your roommate decide that you need some help selecting the appropriate solution, consider involving an impartial third party to help act as a mediator.

Living with people can strengthen relationships or break bonds, and the way that you approach the hurdles you encounter will impact the quality of your relationships for the rest of your life.

Photo by Sara Slattery

Relationships

How to Mediate a Conflict

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Aren’t conflicts just the most fun? Every group of friends, coworkers, or any gathering of people will probably have some sort of drama every now and then.

Be it roommates who aren’t talking because of dishes left in the sink or people who are frustrated about scratch paper being left in the communal copier, it’s good to have a conflict mediation system up your sleeve to help folks work things out. Here are some basic steps:

Assess your Involvement. Are you the best person to be helping these people? Make sure you are actually a neutral party. If you’re not, get the eff out of there: you’ll really only make things worse and get yourself stuck in the middle. Is this a work issue? Make sure you feel comfortable enough with office politics to play this role. As a mediator, your job is not to figure out who is right, but instead to help the aggravated parties create an equitable solution together. Make sure you are coming from the right place.

Set your discussion up. Choose a comfortable, quiet, private place to chat. Start by setting some ground rules for the discussion. These are here to make sure the discussion stays on track and that people are less likely to be hurt by others’ words (because we all know that “sticks and stones” is a huge lie). Good ground rules include:

  • ‘I statements’: Participants only talk about their experience of the situation. This doesn’t include what they think others might feel, or why they think others have done something.

Pro tip: “I think you’re a bitch” is not an ‘I statement.’

  • Be kind: no yelling, no insults, no storming out.
  • If anyone in the group has to leave at a certain time, talk about that now so everyone is aware.

Tell everyone the structure of the discussion, so people know what to expect. Here is a typical structure:

  • Each person explains their side of the story and gets heard by everyone else.
  • Together, you all explore solutions.
  • After exploring, you’ll agree on a solution to start with.

Now it’s time to jump in!

Figure out what actually happened. Start by having each person explain where they are coming from. Flip a coin or draw numbers to see who starts first. In instances with large groups of people, it’s important to repeat this process with each individual, and not set up camps. Each person will have a unique experience of the conflict, and people ganging up on another person will defeat the purpose.

Here is an example, using our imaginary friends Oscar and Martha:

  • Martha won the coin toss, so she starts by telling her side of the story and why she is upset.
  • Oscar repeats what he heard Martha say without interpretation or explanation.

This is super critical. The goal of this piece of the process is to make sure that each person’s feelings are put out in the open, and each person can confirm that the other person understands. The summary should be something like “Martha says that it she feels frustrated when she comes home to a sink full of dirty dishes.” An example of a bad summary would be “I leave my dishes in the sink, and it doesn’t matter to me, because I have more important things to do than dishes.” As a mediator, it’s really important to keep people from digging in their heels and not trying the process out.

If you are mediating a conflict between a large group of people, have each person say something. They don’t have to tell the whole story back, but it’s critical that person who shared feels like every person understood.

  • Martha confirms whether or not Oscar understood her story correctly. I usually ask people “Is that how you feel?” or “Is that what happened?”
  • Repeat, but with Oscar’s side of the story.
  • If you are in a group, repeat until each individual has had an opportunity to tell their experience.

Take a deep breath. Well done! At this point in the mediation, things should already be looking up. Feeling heard is really powerful, and getting everything out on the table is usually more than half the battle. But, we still have to press on…

As mediator, identify key words and issues. Is someone looking for respect? Cleanliness? Remuneration? What were some needs that were identified as not being fulfilled? Choose the issues that need to be resolved, and get ready to start looking for solutions. Make sure to check first with the people who are upset—it would make things way worse to assume you know exactly what the biggest issues are.

  • A great way to ask this is, “It sounds like it really bothers you, Martha, when you come home and find dishes in the sink, is this true? Can I list this as one of the main issues to focus on?”
  • There is no right number of issues to focus on—it totally depends on the conflict and how much time you have. If you are pressed for time, make sure to ask the people you are helping what the most important things to focus on are.

Start Looking for Solutions. With the person who lost the coin toss starting first (Oscar in our case) or the last person to speak if in a large group, start asking your conflicted parties to suggest solutions to each issue. Each person should suggest a solution, and then there should be time to think before swapping to the other person. Go issue-by-issue and write the suggestions down until you have a good brainstorm of solutions.

Photo by Anastasia Heuer

Photo by Anastasia Heuer

Check In. Take a beat. Check in with those involved. Are they feeling good? Hopeful? Frustrated? If they are not feeling so great, go back and explore more about what is really going wrong. You may be focusing on something totally incorrect!

Make a Plan. Once you have a list of solutions and everyone’s feeling good, make an action plan, and make it SMART. That is, Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. A bad solution would be “Oscar will wash the dishes,” but a SMART solution is “Oscar will wash dirty dishes within 24 hours of using them.” The latter solution can be checked in a way that the former can’t, and that makes it really easy to identify when Oscar hasn’t followed up.

Check Back. Make a time to check in with the involved parties to see how they are doing. Make plans for coffee a week or two later to see how they are feeling and reassess then.

Want to read more about conflict resolution? My favorite resource is The Center for Nonviolent Communication