How To Resolve Arguments With Your Fresher Year Roommate
As we settle into university halls, surrounded by new people living under one roof, things can turn from exciting to frustrating very quickly! If you’re a fresher you’ll be completely new to this, but don’t worry because everybody more than likely will be in the same boat. In student halls, everybody has diverse personalities which can make it very tricky to determine how everybody will react to different situations that will occur during the year. You are lucky if you get through your first year without any disputes while staying in student halls. Not to stress though because here is how to resolve arguments with your fresher flatmates!
Take Time Out For Yourself
As much as we love being in the company of housemates and friends, it can sometimes become overwhelming and soon it get’s a bit much. It’s so important that you take time out for yourself away from university work and people you find yourself surrounded with constantly. It might seem selfish, but honestly, you sometimes need to timeout during university so that you can refresh and focus on what makes you happy.
If certain issues arise during your first year and you don’t want to get yourself involved, then it may be best to take some time out until the dust has settled, so that you can focus on yourself and so that negative situations don’t affect your studies! Remember the reason why you are at university is so that you can get a degree and start a career in a field you are passionate about! Conflict with housemates is not within in your interests! This will definitely help you in how to resolve arguments with your roommate.
Compromise
If something small has triggered what seems to be a forever going argument, then you both need to sit at the table and try and put your differences aside and compromise. It might be as something as small as cleaning the kitchen, who are not taking the bins out and why are there empty beer bottles lying around everywhere days after the party has ended?
You both need to rationalise the issue that started the argument in the first place and in the process, you can plan ways to dissolve the issue and not let it happen all over again. In life, we all must compromise here and there and help each other and it’s at times like these being at student halls we must learn how to make sure that everybody is happy in living under the same roof. This is one of the best ways to ensure that everybody doesn’t keep arguing over the same issues if you come together to try and solve them. This is probably the best way for how to resolve arguments with your roommate.
Rationalise
Depending on how the conflict started, you may want to consider trying to communicate with your other housemates as to why everybody is not getting along. Personalities tend to clash and that’s life because you’re not going to get along with everybody. As much as some people want to, sometimes it just doesn’t happen. You need to choose your friends wisely, flatmate or not.
A way to do this is to rationalise the situation. If a housemate is not willing to get along because of something silly, then they are probably not going to make a good friend in the long run. Some people are mature while others are not and it’s up to you to choose which housemates are rational and can help you to resolve the dispute. Sometimes this can be awkward if a housemate has decided not to be your friend or just doesn’t want to get on, but remember it’s your choice and you can be the bigger person!
Find New Friends
As a last resort, you may want to leave your housemates and find new friends. Yes, we get that this sounds a little extreme, but do you really want the constant rivalry to negatively impact your university experience? It’s not fair on you or your other housemates that may be involved that don’t necessarily want to be. You can either try to wait the year out before you consider moving halls, but if things have gotten to such a point that you just can’t deal anymore, you might want to find other halls of residence to stay in or find friends who might let you move in with them.
If you’ve tried everything to try and resolve underlying issues with the flatmates you are arguing with and nothing seems to be working, then it may be the best idea to move away from the situation, so that you don’t become stressed and mentally exhausted trying to get on with someone who is clearly not going to make the effort on getting on with you!
We hope this helped! What do you think are some tips you could offer to someone on how to resolve arguments with a roommate? Let us know!
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A soon to be 3rd year journalism student at the University of Salford who loves music, design, photography and a good party!