I am about to start living with another girl in a dorm. I guess there is not a ‘‘norm’’ and everyone is different but what are your experiences or knowledge about this? I am really comfortable changing clothes or being in my underwear around other people and if she is ok with it I will be too but in any case I respect other people’s comfort levels.
In your experience where do most people change in dorms? Do a lot of them use the bathrooms?
In my experience, most people change in their rooms. Most likely, no one will make a big deal about it as long as you don’t go out of your way to make people uncomfortable.
Most people change in their rooms; some might change in the bathrooms, but if it’s not a suite-style living situation, I think it would be too much of a hassle to bring your clothes all the way to the bathroom with you. I’m a very modest person when it comes to changing, I guess. So I usually change in my room with a towel wrapped around me unless it’s just changing clothes like one would do in a gym class. My roommate is comfortable with being in her underwear around people, and I’m not. But we never had any spoken rules about changing, so we just don’t look at each other while changing or change facing the other way.
Most girls I know change in front of roommates. My floor is co-ed but everyone is pretty close and a lot of us change (although never fully nude!) with the door open. There’s a running joke on my floor about the number of times one of the guys (who has a girlfriend) has walked in on one of the girls changing.
I wear a bathrobe back from the shower and then change into my clothes while turned away from my roommate. I don’t think my roommate has ever changed her undergarments in front of me, which is a little bit strange to me, but whatever suits her is fine by me.
I must be a little weird. I change in the bathroom. No wish to see anyone else’s bare butt or anything else and wouldn’t inflict mine on my roommate – especially because we’re not friends.
You will learn to deal with whatever the situation turns out to be. I asked my roommates the first time I changed whether it was OK that I changed in the room, and they were fine with it, so we all change in there. Girls and guys from some other rooms often change in the bathrooms, but we just tend to turn away from the rest of the room and do what we need to. I personally tend to change one half (upper or lower) then the other but that is mostly because it is cold, not because of embarrassment.
When I was in the dorms, I just faced away from my roommates while changing and changed as quickly as possible. They did the same. I mean, if it were something like changing straight into my pajamas after a shower, I’d just change before leaving the bathroom. But otherwise I thought it was too much of a hassle to go to the bathroom to change, even though I was in a suite.
I remember it being awkward to change around each other for a week, maybe two. After that point none of us cared. And people lounging around in their underwear has never bothered me (one of my roommates did so periodically), though I don’t personally do it.