What if I don't get along with my roommate?
About half of all roommates, according to the Higher Education Research Institute, have issues with their roommates; so it's normal. But the thing is most students don't confront these issues because they're like, "I can't talk about something that's going to upset my roommate", because you're in a new place, you're feeling uncomfortable, new feelings, and the last thing you ever want to do is say something critical of your roommate. Therefore what happens is something like a gum wrapper becomes a huge issue where you have this amazing and incredible brawl followed by a huge all-out fight ,because there are so many other issues that have led to that gum wrapper, and that's a real story. These guys were going at it, like extreme fighting, and it's pretty insane. But what you need to do is set a precedent early, and what I say is when you get into that room, you tell your roommate, "hey, I've never lived with someone before. If I do something that makes you uncomfortable, let me know, and I hope it's cool if you do something that makes me uncomfortable, I can let you know." Because if you can set this precedent early, instead of having a huge confrontation, you can have conversations and these little things that we do just because of who we are. They don't have to become these big issues. They can just become conversations. "Hey, you know, maybe you can do that differently or maybe I can do this differently. And if you can talk from the beginning, then you're guaranteed to have a great relationship if you both want to get along.
