Roommate Dynamics

Tayler Reviere Verninas | Arts and Culture Editor | The USD Vista

“Whose dishes are in the sink?” is a common question asked within the walls of our glorified room in the Vistas apartments.  Roommates.  You can’t live with them but … wait, you do live with them! Sometimes tension between roommates can be heightened, especially after a few days of leaving dirty dishes in the sink.

Yes, it is irritating when necessary roommate chores are not finished. When the trash can is overflowing with bottles, boxes, and paper and it clearly needs to be taken out.

Or when your roommate’s clothes are all over the ground just waiting to be washed. When the dish drying rack is filled with dishes that are not your own but you have to put them away to be able to dry more dishes.  It is little things that can sometimes perturb us to the point of confrontation.

Depending on how assertive we are, it may be difficult to have the courage to address certain roommate issues. But after a few days of not being able to see the carpet or wood floor, and hours of smelling an old, nasty banana still sitting in the trash, we might just be over our irresponsible roommate(s). Cue the confrontation time.

Confrontation is not a bad thing; in fact, it may be beneficial to state our frustration rather than keep it held in. It might be intimidating at first to speak our mind, however, as the conversation progresses we may find that confrontation is not all that bad.

Everyone has different personality traits and handles situations in ways that could be completely different from our own. Sometimes it is difficult to get along with others, yet it challenges us to learn how to deal with these types of interpersonal conflicts.

Conflict is inevitable, but it is how we deal with conflict that has the ability to make life more or less stressful. So the challenge today (and for the rest of our interpersonal lives) is to understand the dynamics of living with someone and hopefully grow as an individual from these confrontations.

Let us empathize with others’ differing opinions, lifestyles, and habits, and find a compromise to living a life of healthy communication and relationships.

Also, shoutout to my roommates and I for having these awkward, yet necessary conversations thus far in the school year. Coffee cheers to many more confrontations and many more opportunities to grow.