My roommate thinks we're best friends, I need help in telling her the rest of us are moving

Student Lounge College Life
1

Hello!
My friends and I are in our sophomore year of college. As the title says, I have a bit of a difficult roommate situation. Like most people, I’m bad at confrontation–I want to get through this with as little casualties as possible.

So this girl, we went to high school together. We were never really friends in high school to be completely honest. I had a great freshman year at university, I made a ton of friends, lots of soul searching, etc. This girl never left her room, therefore she has pretty much no friends on campus. My friends and I were getting desperate (three of us girls and the rest are guys) since we needed one other girl to get into academic housing. On an impulse decision, we decided to ask her. I felt guilty since she had not made any friends and we were desperate and it was someone who wasn’t a stranger…yeah. Flash forward to this year, it’s not a good, comfortable environment. I am incredibly unhappy, it’s really hard to avoid someone who lives in the other corner of the bedroom. It’s her personality (or lack thereof), her cleanliness, how fake she can be, just everything is holding me back.

My other two roommates and I are very happy together, our original plans were for the three of us. We found out that one of our good friends is actually moving back on campus and she is more than willing to live with us! We have our plan, we just need to tell this girl that we have our own plans.

This is where it gets difficult…
As I said, she has no friends. She thinks that we’re the greatest thing ever–it’s obsessive to the point that she has pictures of us hanging on her walls. None of us feel the same way back. Also, she and her parents are HUGE gossips, I feel that without a doubt they will have more than enough to say (we come from a small town). She also gets super emotional and overreacts to many things. I could go on and on, but yeah.

Should I talk to her alone, or with the group? (I don’t want it to seem as though we’re ganging up on her and I’ve known her longest and I initially got us into this mess). How do I even open up this conversation? The plan so far is to talk to her before winter break so that she has time to get over over it (and I don’t have to be present for the aftermath) and then find people before contracts open in February.

Thank you! :slight_smile:

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This is definitely a challenging situation. I’d recommend you talk to her privately - Your thought to do so with enough time to find other roommates and to have some time to digest this news is commendable.

You can bet she won’t see this coming so remember to be as kind as possible. This is going to feel like a ‘break up’ to her and will likely be an emotional situation. Make sure you have time,privacy and an exit strategy for yourself as well. Practice what you plan to say and have a strategy in mind with her possible questions/concerns.

Are you asking her to move out at the end of the year or immediately at winter break? It wasn’t quite clear from your message above. Will doing this create a financial situation for her or her parents? Are there any leases she would have to be released from? Make sure you have all this information hased out before you talk to her. And remember - you asked her to be your roommate and she deserves all the kindness you can give her since this will be very hard for her - Don’t make it about her.

You seem like a thoughtful and kind person so I’m sure - while difficult - you will do a great job. Best of luck to you!

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Talk to her alone first. These kind of discussion in big groups will just make the thing a bigger deal than it needs to be. When do you guys have finals? I wouldn’t recommend telling her before her exams, but I would recommend hinting at it before you sit down with her. If housing comes up, just say something like “I’m not sure what my plans for future semesters are”. This way it comes off as less a surprise.

When you finally do sit her down, tell her that you and your friends are going to be moving out and that you wanted to let her know in advance so that she has time to find alternatives before being assigned random roommates. Only give her the information she asks for, don’t need to make it worse than it’s gonna seem. If you have to, explain that it is less about disliking her and more about helping out your other friend. A reasonable person would understand and if she doesn’t, that’s not your problem. She didn’t care when she was making your life difficult did she?