roommate issues

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I'm having living issues with my roommate. I'm an only child, so I've never had to share a space with anyone and I don't know if I'm being unreasonable or inconsiderate.</p>

<p>Typically, she leaves her side of the room messy, which is irritating, but she does keep it confined to her side. I don't think she's ever mopped the floor, whereas I have four or five times since the year started and it was in our roommate contract.</p>

<p>She's woken me up several times - once she woke me up to ask if she could use my phone charger. Another time she woke me up by jumping into my bed crying about a boy she liked who didn't like her back. Once, her friends woke me up the night before I had a final because she was spending the night in a friends room and having an asthma attack and didn't bring her inhaler with her (I'm not really so irritated about this one, I have asthma too so I understand, but she has severe asthma - she really shouldn't be anywhere without her inhaler. It was irresponsible. She could have died). Last night, I was asleep and she was eating crunchy cereal very loudly in the middle of the room, which again, woke me up. She has morning classes and wakes me up almost every morning while she's getting ready. She snores, grinds her teeth, and breathes loudly.</p>

<p>Another big thing that bothered me was that a few weekends ago, she got really drunk. So drunk she couldn't walk or talk and she didn't know where she was or who she was with. I cam home as her friends were bringing her into our room. I don't even like the girl but I was holding her over a bucket as there were people I didn't know in my space sitting on my bed trying to decide if they should call the ambulance or not. She did wind up going to the hospital. I don't mind this so much - the first weekend of college I didn't know what I was doing and threw up all over the floor. I put a towel over it and cleaned it up as soon as I woke up the next morning even though I was terribly hung over. I apologized to my roommate profusely and even took her out to a nice lunch as an apology. What I do mind is this: My roommate broke my table I had by my bed and knocked over a jar of tuna she had sitting on it. She didn't clean up the tuna on the floor for two days. She only cleaned it up after I asked her and she said she "didn't notice it." She didn't thank me for helping take care of her (which is understandable, she may not have known). But what really hurt my feelings and made me feel completely disrespected is the fact that she didn't apologize to me at all for any of it, especially after I went so far out of my way to show my remorse when a similar situation happened to me. </p>

<p>I've gradually been building up resentment towards her over the semester but it all came to a head earlier tonight. I was sitting on my bed watching TV with the lights off, and she came in and turned the lights on, stopped to dump her stuff on the floor, and left without turning the lights back off. It was a small thing but I just snapped.</p>

<p>I talked to her tonight. I told her I felt very disrespected, and she said she actually felt the same. She had a couple of complaints about me:
- At night I type on my keyboard and she can hear it while she wants to sleep,.
- I leave the overhead light on while she sleeps. This isn't true - I don't do work in our room so I have no reason to leave the light on. I actually prefer the lights off. She sleeps with a mask and I've literally come back to our room from the library at one in the morning to her sleeping in the room with the overhead light on. It weirds me out. Admittedly, sometimes I turn the lamp by my bed on while she's asleep, but I don't understand why this would bother her when she can and does sleep with the overhead on.
- I watch tv shows when she's in the room without ear phones. I've done this with her in the room max three times. It's because my earphones go over my head. I like to watch TV while I curl my hair, and I can't do that with earphones in. I've never done it while she was studying. I did do it once while she was napping - which was rude of me - but I had an event I had to go to within the hour, it was in the middle of the day, and I turned the volume down on my computer as low as it would go.</p>

<p>So, am I being inconsiderate? I only have to live with her for about 2 more months, but is there anything I can do to make these two months less unpleasant?</p>

<p>It seems like a lot of these problems have gradually grown into huge annoyances. I’m a huge advocate of addressing the little things so they don’t fester into resentment! That said it’s a bit too late for that, so you have to make the best of the situation you have on hand. I suggest asking her out for a lunch where you two can discuss any and all annoyances you have with one another in a calm, respectful way. Remember that even if you were living with a perfect roommate, the close conditions for an extended period of time would cause friction; it can’t be avoided. Come up with three things each that the other can remedy in the next two months to ease some of this friction. You’ve both survived the majority of the year with things how they are. Two more months will zoom by!! Good luck!</p>