Close Call

Well, I called it. The first major conflict did occur, and everyone was pretty upset about it. My roommates texted me to come back to the room as soon as possible this weekend because we needed to have a talk with everyone together to make sure we shared the same feelings and addressed the problems at hand. What happened differently than the usual things that have been going on recently? This time, people came back to the room to have a guy stumble in and then decide to go onto the bed of one of our roommates. For a while, people did not know he was there because only two of them saw him come in. But, when people did see him (asleep), some did not recognize him at all and a few others recognized him as someone who lived on the floor above us. Either way, it is shocking to come in, go about your business before climbing into, and THEN realize that there was guy in the room the whole time.

When I got there after rushing back by myself at night, I first wanted to get him out of our room because he was left there unattended when the rest of the roommates decided to go downstairs to talk because they felt awkward in the room. However, when I went up, he was too big for me, or any of us to move, and in such a “deep sleep” that he would not wake up, or even react. That was frustrating to say the least. Instead, I tried calling the roommate who is friends with him, but it was also a few calls before I got an answer from her. Also frustrating. But, what frustrated everyone was that when they told her they felt uncomfortable with him there (and the fact that none of us were forewarned) and politely asked for her to tell him to leave the room, she ignored the request and went instead to sleep somewhere else. Needless to say, a disagreement broke out.

The talk between the group of us addressed that, and eventually we came to the conclusion that we are all guilty of not saying something when we have felt uncomfortable in the room, and the reason we have never said anything is because it will be taken personally and spitefully instead of respectfully. When people asked for him to leave, it was because it felt weird to have someone unaccompanied in the room with whom we were not friends; it was not supposed to be a big deal for him to go upstairs to his room, but it was taken personally, and responded to that way when we were supposed to “deal with it.” Hopefully all the roommates will keep the result of the talk in mind from here on out. If not, something like this could happen again, and it could be worse.