How to communicate with strange roommates

It’s a typical Wednesday. You walk back to your dorm room after class, ready to take your usual afternoon nap. As you make your way to your bed, you notice something different. There is a chunk missing from your surfboard. The first potentially guilty person that comes to mind is your roommate. You’re not sure if this person’s hunger, anger or excitement stirred this reaction on your surfboard, but your confusion of possible motives and guilty parties is blurred by the flames in your eyes.

Roommate horror stories are definitely not uncommon. Though many situations are less extreme, problems among roommates are inevitable, especially when people of different backgrounds, values, personalities and bad habits are randomly paired (or tripled) up and expected to live together in a tiny dorm room or cramped apartment for an entire year. Even if you’ll be living with a friend, your friendship will unfortunately be redefined.

Roommate situations are one of the hardest problems to deal with in college amid the stress of your papers, exams, presentations and club meetings. Before one goes about solving these issues, it’s important to categorize what type of roommate(s) you have.

The Best Friend: You and your roommate click like BFFs. You never spend a minute apart. He or she is like the brother or sister you never had. This may sound like the perfect roommate, but too much time together can lead to the Old-Married-Couple-Syndrome, with constant bickering and pointless arguments. One of my roommates falls under this category. We get along perfectly, but there are just some days we love to disagree on everything imaginable. However, at the end of the day, our love for each other prevails, because we are indeed BFFs.

The Arouser: This person’s boyfriend or girlfriend, booty call, playmate or all of the aforementioned are constantly in your room. You may be the unfortunate bottom bunk inhabitant with this roommate on the top. You have to hear the constant creaking of the bed and other erotic noises that may come with this package. To you, this may either be an amusing story to tell or a scar for life. To solve this arousing problem, you and your roommate should set up “alone time” schedules, a rubber band on the doorknob or simply a text saying “warning” before your dorm room excursions. My friend once walked in on her Arousing roommate. After my friend awkwardly expressed her concern, the Arouser placed a canopy around her bed to avoid future embarrassment.

The Night Owl: For some reason, this person does not do anything during the day but rather stays up all night to study, play Mario Kart or type frantically on his or her computer. If you’re lucky, this person can work with the lights off, but in less fortunate cases the light will shine brightly in your eyes while you are trying to fall asleep. One Night Owl I know stays up all night walking around the dorm floor with his ramen, trying to find anyone who is awake, fails miserably, crashes on the floor of his room, wakes up 10 minutes later and repeats this routine. You might want to tell this Night Owl to leave the room if they are disturbed by the words “late night” and “sleep” placed in the same sentence.

The Daytime Mute and Nighttime Animal: You can’t even tell if this person is in the room during the day, but at night she is the most interesting character. From snoring, to moaning, to talking in her sleep, she is indeed the nighttime animal. You are almost afraid to ask what she is dreaming about. Earplugs may just have to be your new best friend, or you may want to keep a small object handy to gently throw at your roommate if she is having too much fun in her dreams. I actually live with one of these, and earplugs are indeed miracle workers.

The Party Animal: Thanks to the freedom of college, it is possible to party every single day of the week. And thanks to the diversity among UCLA students, it is possible to have a population of Party Animals. You’ve never seen this person sober. If it’s not alcohol, it’s some other drug that takes over this person’s life. This person even goes to class drunk yet manages to pull off a higher grade point average than you. You secretly envy your roommate, but you’re more concerned with keeping your liver intact. You can either try partying with your roommate (you might just enjoy it), or you can move your armoire behind your door so she will not be able to come in and disturb your beauty sleep.

The Obsessive-Compulsive: There isn’t an inch of this roommate’s belongings without a Post-it labeling what is hers. If you touch any of her stuff, you will regret it. If you eat any of her Cheez-Its, you will regret it. Along with obsessively labeling her stuff, she is the most germophobic person you will ever meet. She has hand sanitizer lined up on her shelf. She will hunt you down if you accidently moved her covers as you walk by her bed. I know someone who is so afraid of staying in the room with the Obsessive-Compulsive roommate (who happens to be her best friend), she will settle for any other roommate next year besides her. Maybe if you offer to share some of your food or belongings, this Obsessive-Compulsive will get the hint, tone down the Post-its, and forgive you for eating her Cheez-Its.

The Tag-Along: She thinks she’s your best friend, but deep down, you dislike her. She is constantly around you. She ruins your game. She might just be in love with you. You should go on a quest to find friends for this person, either people just like you (because she would want friends like you), or people even more annoying than this Tag-Along just for the sake of sweet revenge. Or you can do what my friend does: Avoid this person at all costs.

The Ghost: You’ve never met this roommate. You often wonder if she even exists. For example, my friend didn’t meet one of her roommates until eighth week of fall quarter. She would peacefully come in the room to sleep and leave before the other two roommates could catch a glimpse of her. This is every person’s dream roommate. It’s great when she goes home on the weekends. Try staying awake long enough to see your roommate come in the room, do a friendly handshake, then go back to sleep. You may want to know who sleeps in your room at night.

Whatever category your roommate(s) may fall under, no matter how different you are, it is possible to solve some general problems with one key ingredient: communication.

Make sure you let your roommate(s) know what time you want to go to bed, if and when you want the lights turned off, agreements about guests, sharing and when you want the room to yourself. If you let each other know exactly what you want out of your living arrangement, you will encounter far fewer problems than you may expect. Who knows, a simple sock on the door knob may move your roommate from the Arouser to the Best Friend category.

Are you looking for a roommate for next year? E-mail Ghoogassian at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].