My first-year uni flat felt like my own personal version of hell. I wanted to enjoy my frosher experience, but waking up to a flat dynamic that felt like a simulated version of The Hunger Games, often made it difficult to enjoy my time spent at home. Not everyone that I lived with was awful, but the behaviour of some of them had me genuinely convinced I was living with crazy people â an experience that I have since discovered is surprisingly common among first-years.
Weâre so often fed the idea that uni means living with your closest friends and having the best time and whilst this was true of my second and third year, itâs very much a lottery game when it comes to who your assigned to live with as a frosher. Sometimes you get unbelievably lucky; other times you draw the short straw and cannot stand to be around your flatmates. There were moments in my first year that made me want to drop out of uni or move back home, which, again, I think can be a very relatable experience for a lot of students. In hindsight, though, Iâm so glad I stayed. Doing so proved to myself â and I hope will prove to anybody else struggling â that surviving insufferable flatmates is possible and will ultimately make you a more resilient person. When times were rough, there were a few things that helped me stay strong, and I hope that imparting this âwisdomâ might be useful for other students going through the same thing.
Firstly, it is important to remember that the people you live with donât need to be your best friends. It is, of course, easier if you can coexist and at least be civil even when you donât like each other. At the end of the day, though, sometimes being civil can be a challenge and tensions may be so high that you refuse to even acknowledge each otherâs existence. If the latter is more in line with your experiences, this is not the end of the world. University is full of so many people, with vast interests and from a variety of backgrounds, so there is no reason to feel limited to those in your immediate vicinity. Having friends outside of your flat allows you to feel less lonely and may open up other circles and flats that can provide a safer, more comforting space for you. I would advocate that even if you do get along really well with your flatmates, having a wider circle of friends is often a really positive thing. At the risk of sounding overly pessimistic, sometimes people donât show their true colours until weeks or even months after you first meet them, so itâs always better to have a wide array of friends in the event that you ever do need someone outside of your flat to lean on.
Secondly, stand up for yourself. Now obviously there is a vast difference between standing up for yourself and becoming the bully, so tread that line carefully. At the end of the day though, it is so important to know your self-worth when people mistreat you. I spent a portion of my first-year cowering from my flatmates, almost as if I felt that being more docile would make me more likeable and perhaps end the disrespect that I was experiencing. Hereâs the thing: it wonât. When people disrespect you, the worst thing that you can do is allow it, as that will only reinforce the already-heightened narcissism of the witches you live with. Standing up for yourself doesnât mean you have to become aggressive or stoop to their level – (although a well-prepared insult might be called for at times) â it just means that you refuse to tolerate nastiness from others. It may make them hate you even more, but at the end of the day, who cares? Some of the strength I gained over that year came from realizing that it actually does not matter if I am hated by people whose opinions are worthless anyway. That sounds like an obvious statement to make, but when youâre in the midst of flat drama, it can be difficult not to stress over every little thing that you say or do, especially if youâre prone to people-pleasing tendencies. Remind yourself, though, that nobody has any right to disrespect you â you are completely within your rights to dish it right back to them if necessary.
Finally, maintain a positive mindset where possible. Again, this is easier said than done. The uniquely challenging aspect of hating your flatmates is that you canât just avoid them when you all share a kitchen. Just knowing that theyâre living in the same place as you can create a really negative, oppressive atmosphere. There are ways to combat this, though. Make sure that your room (or your side of the room, if youâre sharing) feels cosy and personal. That space is ultimately yours and being able to retreat into that safe haven when you need to is not something to be understated. Make your space as welcoming as possible â and keep the door locked so that nobody can sneak in when youâre out or walk in on you when you least expect it. Most importantly, though, I would say that the single mental element to which I attribute my ability to make it through that year, was hope. However bad things got, I constantly reminded myself that things would get better, because as with any other struggle in life, things always do. If you hate who you live with now, you presumably donât intend to live with them again and hopefully have already made other living arrangements for second year, so be excited! If it canât get worse, the only way is up. The year will whizz by, and you can delight in living with people who donât mistreat you or compromise your self-worth. Having a hopeful mindset really saved me and made it feel like even at the worst of times, things would be okay.
For me, that hope was well-founded, as I went on to have an amazing second-year and am now thriving in my third year. A few months ago, I learned that those same flatmates, who were all living together in second year too, were having a miserable time and it made me feel immensely happy that they got what they deserved. I used to look back on that period of my life and feel so sad that I spent so much time miserable because of it, but as Iâve continued my university journey, I have made so many friends and memories that Iâm less bothered by all that went down during those first few months. Itâs a tricky situation while youâre in it, but I hope that anybody else experiencing hateful flat dynamics can find some guidance through my advice and some reassurance that it is possible to survive your first-year flatmates.