Thread: Frustrated!!!
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Old 05-24-2005, 02:01 PM
calihotguy calihotguy is offline
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some more advice if u r still looking for it....

As it has been mentioned, there has to be an agreed upon standard...if some of your dorm-mates have had people over, whoever they are....then that is enough for you to have people over, whoever they are as well.

Fact is when roommates bring other people to sleep over, they are vouching for them. They could be lying about how they met them or any past history you don't know about with that person (as you could have done to them about how you met this guy had you wanted to instead of taking the high road and being honest). However, it doesn't matter, because that roommate is vouching for the person they bring over just as you are allowed to do..that's all that counts.

As far as the details goes, you have to think of duration of stay and use of the common facilities. You have to consider whether the person u have over might be using the kitchen, a shared bathroom, gas/water, electricity, ect.; that person doing so gives those who share those same facilities the right to have some say in whether that person is allowed to share them as well and for how long. The duration of your guy's stay matters; have your roommates had people over for that amount of time? OR what is the agreed upon standard or precedent, if any? I know I don't want anyone staying at my place for more than a week at a time...any more than that and it feels like I took on another roommate which isn't what I signed up for.

The same standards should apply to all involved - if they can do it, so can you. The only question is whether or not a roommate has brought someone to stay over in the past who ended up being someone who shouldn't have been there (as in a disruptive presence), that's when the right to do so in the future should be revoked. I say as long as you have no history in bringing dangerous people to stay with you, then they should give you the benefit of the doubt as you have with them. A track record should count for something, both in a positive or negative way. If you use that logic with them, which is a very logical argument, and they still don't see it, then it is no longer your problem, it is there's...one they have to deal with no matter how much they try to put it on you.

The more support for your position the better leg you have to stand on and the more confident you can feel in taking a stand. If you, as a reasonable person, feel you have more than enough support for your position and they are just clearly being unreasonable, then you have the right to take whatever action you feel justified in taking (especially if you have talked to nuetral outside sources such as you have here, and, when finally taking your action, you only do so in such a way that minimizes household disruption as much as possible as common courtesy). These are all semantics, the overall point about roommate equality still is what is most important.

Secondly, I think the bigger issue is confrontation. I have been in roommate situations for the last six years or so, because I have been in college and then graduate school. The one thing I know about roommates is avoiding confrontation never works and usually promotes handling things passive aggresively: confrronting the issues with manipulative, subtle, or back-handed ways as a way of avoiding the direct path. Doing so, in the end, only feeds into the problems and creates more mistrust, while a good rapport could have been created in the first place if only the issues were all put on the table to be dealt with directly.

Usually I have found that those who are better with confrontation, because they become increasingly uncomfortable with the lack of resolution, will end up pushing the buttons of the "non-confronter" until that person finally snaps due to the combination of all the frustration that has built up through avoiding the issues and being pushed to that edge by the confronter. Often, instead of some volcanic eruption, I have seen roommates become passive aggressive where they start doing backstabbing things seemingly out of nowhere, chronically gettting in a serious fights, or begin exchanges of vendettas (you did this, so I will do that). It can even come to a point where u don't even want to come home because the minute you walk in you feel all that built up tension from those past unresolved issues.

The best bet in any roommate situation is to confront anything and everything the minute it happens; your home should be your sanctuary and you have just as much of a right to be happy there as anyone else, I say do your part and assert that you are as valuable as anyone else. The point in doing all you can do is to see where you have been contributing to your own unhappiness and then ceasing those behaviors. In the end, if you have done all that and did all you could do, but are still left with an unsatisfying living situation, then it would be time to discover ALL your options in finding someplace else to live or new roommates.

No one can make you powerless without your consent, remember that, there are always choices.

As always, I offer an earfull...hope I wasn't too long-winded and that I helped in some way. :-)
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