A Word of Advice... on fractured friendships

By Joshua O'Connell
Posted Monday, January 27, 2003

What do you do when your roommate continuously calls you stupid in front of other roommates?

--Upset over insults

The immediate reflex my fingers want to take are lines straight out of fifth grade: "It takes one to know one." "I'm rubber and you're glue…"

I keep thinking that because that people who feel the need to be petty and rude to someone they're rooming with is completely and utter stupid. It's January, and there's four more months of fun and games in the world that is campus living. It doesn't matter if you have one, two, or six roommates in a particular dorm room, apartment, or townhouse; getting along with your roommates is a requirement for a good semester.

If you can't get along with your roommates, then the library becomes your study area and a friend's house becomes your living room. Being that mobile ensures you'll have so many distractions and the only thing you'll remember is that you haven't eaten in seven hours.

The best way to tackle this is to try to sit down, talk with them, and just agree that if you don't like each other, just ignore each other and allow the opportunity for a stress-free living situation. If that doesn't work, ask your roommates to step in and help keep peace in the house, since friction between any two roommates can lead to an entire house worth of dysfunctional family fun. It'll be like Thanksgiving at home, without all that fun turkey and stuffing and all the other vittles that you get to enjoy. (I've always wanted to use "vittles" in a column.)

Call a truce, do what you can, and ultimately if your roommate wants to start a dorm war, arm yourself with the best arsenal you have: being above that and being polite anyway.

--Wanting the best

I'm sorry to hear that you are dealing with this issue. The only thing I can say is that people and circumstances change. Unless you've done something horrible, or you were a couple and now have broken up, it might not be that he or she stopped caring as much as they're going through something right now that they are trying to deal with on their own. While that might not always seem like the best option, supporting a person in that situation by just offering to be there is the best thing.

If it was someone you were in a relationship with, maybe someone new came along and he or she thought distance was the best option, so that the new relationship can prosper or fail on its own merits without the chance (no matter how big or small) for jealousy or confusion over feelings.

Whatever the reason, if someone doesn't care about you anymore, or just isn't spending the time with you that used to be spent, it's not the end of the world, and more than that it's not something you can control, so why try to? Do what you can, but if it's not going to work out, write it off as a life experience and take advantage of all those friends you've got other than that one person. If fewer friends is what that person wants in life, it's his or her loss, not yours.

--Hoping to mend the fence

Tell her to stop having a social life outside of the friendship.

Actually, this is a fairly easy one: before the rest of you make plans, find out when she's available, and the very next time you go out, make sure you build it around her schedule. One of those unwritten rules about friends is that if you keep leaving one out, it's time to find a way to include them ASAP. This is especially important if she's a good friend and someone you like hanging out with, which it sounds like she is by the tone of the letter.

Being left out a lot by a group of friends can hurt just as much as getting dumped. Think about the last time you were dumped, left out, or simply ignored and then magnify it a bit because you've apparently done it a few times. This isn't dump-on-the-letter-writer time, but I just wanted to be sure you see why this can be such a bad thing.

If you plan around her schedule, you'll show that you feel the same way about her being left out and don't want to continue the trend. If that's not enough, I'm sure that a night or two of hanging out with you should bring an end to any misgivings. If she keeps bringing it up, you always have a backup plan - just go back to the pre-makeup mode and just start leaving her out again. As in the above letter, it'd be her loss. Good luck, and thanks for asking.

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