Aaron W. Voyles speaks of the unspoken communication of good roommates.
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Writing about college, manhood in college, and the boyhood experiences that lead up to college has made me want to take a brief respite from the heady language and theory of my normal columns to give thanks to my college roommate. I owe my roommate a great deal of appreciation for his help in my development as a young man.
In a previous article, I noted that even though my hall fell into debauchery at times, one of the reasons that I didn’t move was because I had a cool roommate. I stand by that statement and my roommate. He’s still cool today, though it’s probably worth noting that my frame of reference for “cool” is limited and somewhat suspect.
I saw my roommate at orientation before I knew we were rooming together. He doesn’t know this (unless he reads this column), but when I saw his orientation group perform some stupid skit, I wanted him to be the person who was my roommate. He seemed outgoing. It seemed like other people liked him. He seemed cool.
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As it turned out, we were roommates. He certainly didn’t always seem cool when we were rooming together, but we did have a lot in common. We both played guitar. We both were originally from the Atlanta area. We were both geeky and into obscure music. And we both wanted to be film majors.
I don’t know how the roommate picking software for that university works, but they should get that program everywhere. Across colleges, I now see roommates who cannot get along, who fight or don’t talk to each other, and who passive-aggressively fight through Twitter or Facebook. And yet, my roommate and I shared a room or apartment all four years of college.
Here are some things my roommate did for me that were awesome: I had a girlfriend still in high school during freshman year. He left every weekend she visited. He didn’t act like I was really weird when I went through strange phases. He didn’t make fun of me for having an Alienware computer. At least to my face. He didn’t get offended when I ran off with other crowds of people. He put up with all the different types of girlfriends I chose to have. He won a coin toss for the better room in our apartment junior year and still let me have it. The list goes on.
Yes, there were things that he did that drove me crazy too. One time I went on a study abroad for a month in Japan and he only took the trash out once. He had the world’s largest collection of used root beer cans in his bathtub. But, above all, he was still cool.
What I wonder is how we were able to get along when so many roommate pairings now can’t. When I was supervising an all-male hall, we would even have physical altercations break out. Our college men do not always feel as though they know how to have a conversation or mediation about what is going on in the room, and so they will move from roommate to roommate, thinking the problem is with the other person rather than partially their own doing.
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I certainly don’t think my roommate and I had any strong ability to mediate what was going on when we were frustrated with one another. I once purchased diet cola for a whole semester because my roommates kept drinking my soda and that was the only way to stop them. Saved on those calories too.
I don’t know if my roommate felt the same way, but, for me, the reason we stayed together was an equation of known problems versus unknown problems. There was an understanding that though he drove me crazy sometimes, I at least knew what he did that drove me nuts so I could avoid it. I had no idea if a new roommate would be ten times worse.
Do I wish I had developed some more skills to talk about my feelings or discuss issues with my roommate? I’m torn. Sure, those are good skills. But I also think that as guys, my roommate and I developed our own language and understanding of one another without talking. A trip together to the record store or a particularly good session with our band could ease frustrations or smooth things out.
My hope for these roommates who will move in together this fall is that they find that language between them as well. Being a guy and developed as a man doesn’t mean you have to completely change how you operate in a conflict. It just means you have to develop a system that works for you.
And for men considering a room change, think about some of the positive things your roommate has done for you. Think about all the potential negatives another could give you. Weight the known and the unknown. Figure out your method of communication. And then go get some free food at one of the residence hall programs.
Ditching the Dunce Cap is a weekly Friday column from Aaron W. Voyles on the University of Texas-Austin. He welcomes your comments.
—Photo Joseph O’Connell/Flickr
Also in Ditching the Dunce Cap:
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Examining the Axe Effect
When Will You Grab Your Saw?
Do You Know the Mega-Dump?
If the Shoe Fits, Cheat