I am no longer living under the illusion that sharing a house with other college-age girls is a walk in the park. When my suitemates and I got the email that we were being asked to move out of our dorm, we instantly took to realtor.com, Zillow, Apartments.com and the UNC Class of 2023 Facebook page for possible sub-leasers. After finding our current house in Carrboro, the wave of stress and anxiety was replaced with a rush of excitement for the unexpected circumstance we were placed in. Within a month, we were unpacked and starting to get comfortable. Our house looked like “actual human beings lived there,” a quote from one of our guy friends who has foldable lawn chairs for furniture. It was easy, for a time.
Though we were all friends beforehand, we hadn’t been able to experience how we lived together. We had only been in our suite for two and a half weeks and hadn’t gotten off the excitement high within the first month of moving into our house. Soon, we began to realize it wasn’t all we chalked it up to be. One of us would forget to take out the trash and then we would forget to do our chores and then someone would forget to clean up their dishes, and all of it piled into frustration in our tiny two-bedroom house. There was nowhere to go, no way to avoid it. Campus was closed and the only place open late was the coffee shop near our house which closed at 6:00 p.m. At one point, my roommate suggested we have a weekly house meeting to catch up and check-in. Though most of them were fairly tame, discussions about mask policy in the house and whether we should get tested sometimes turned into arguments or disputes over built-up irritations. It became difficult to be in the house all day long. The mornings after arguments you could cut the tension with a butter knife. It was like we were forced to walk on eggshells in our own house. Some of us would go to friends’ houses or to nearby coffee shops. It was hard to make nice with each other within hours of getting angry.
However, as despairing as I’m making this out to be, I learned the only way to live well is to love well. Firstly, we had to learn how to love each other. I can’t begin to count the number of nights we stayed up talking about our love languages and re-taking the enneagram test to get some insight into each other’s lives. We learned each other’s direct and indirect cues. I learned how to read the room better, and to understand when the transition was made between fun times and work times. Learning these things will make interpersonal conflict more beneficial for you and your housemates. You learn how to accommodate your housemates as they validate your communication style.
Here’s some of my final advice. Be slow to anger and quick to listen. Learn to let go of the small things, the things that you would ask them to let go. Learn to love one another in the moments of joy and the moments of conflict. It may take time, but it will absolutely be worth every minute.