My sister(18) and I(20) are both in university. Since last year, she started sharing a room with me because it was financially easier for us to rent the same house instead of separate houses. However, since she arrived, everything in my life has become a little messy. We only have one room, and we basically have no privacy. I can no longer do the things I used to do when I lived alone, and it’s mentally exhausting because I feel like I can never do anything once I’m at home.
To cope, I started spending as much time as possible outside since last semester because I just can’t stand some of her habits. She plays video games loudly and calls her friends in front of me, knowing it’s distracting when I’m trying to do my homework. But I also have to admit that I’m not blameless, as I sometimes chat with people on Discord or watch TV, and she gets mad at me for disturbing her with my activities.
I miss being able to watch TV, exercise in my room, or casually chat with my friends, but I feel like I don’t have the right to do any of that when she’s around. I understand that she needs peace and quiet when she’s at home, especially for doing her homework, but I’m already making the effort to stay outside as much as possible. When I come back home, I can’t even enjoy myself a little bit.
She’s naturally very loud and talkative, while I’m more on the introverted side and don’t like talking all the time. But she won’t stop talking to me, and when I don’t answer her questions, she acts like a victim and makes me feel guilty about myself.
Living with her is not a complete hell, but it has negative repercussions on my productivity and grades. I don’t blame her for my bad grades, as I know it’s mostly my fault. But I wasn’t like this before she arrived. I can’t study the way I want to because she can’t stand it when I say things out loud while reviewing my class, which is usually how I study. Moreover, I’m not allowed to stay up too late at night because she can’t sleep with bright lights, and there are other restrictions as well. All of these factors have made me lose motivation to study at home. Even when I go to the library to do assignments, I can’t stay there for too long because it closes at 7pm, and I barely have time to review my class (I’m a math major). Once I’m home, I can’t continue my work because I can’t force her to accept everything I ask of her, even though there are things I don’t allow her to do either.
I just feel like I’m difficult to live with and that I wasn’t made to have a roommate. However, since I can’t afford to rent another dorm, I would like to know how I can adapt to the situation, as it’s affecting my grades and academic performance this semester
TLDR; I can’t stand living with a roommate anymore, what can I do?
3 comments
Negotiation.
Ask her for a “if we weren’t related” meeting, and ask for a schedule of when you can have personal time, and when she can.
Study in labs or halls or libraries elsewhere on campus.
Use your campus as a living room, and your dorm as a bunk and changing space.
Remind her that you love her, and know you are lucky not to be roomed with a stranger, but that you are both finding who you are and how you fit the world, and you will have to forgive each other as you figure out where the awkward bits are.
Dorms suck. They really do.
You do what you’d do with any other roommate situation that isn’t working out:
Suck it up for as long as your lease is in effect, and then give appropriate notice that you’ll be finding your own place going forward.
You could try to change things.
But really, reconsider why you would make such a choice. You must have known that your sister is a chatterbox who has light sensitivity. Next time, don’t make “it’s cheaper” the deciding factor. Because if “cheap” was how you made your choices, you wouldn’t own a tv, would live in a closet of a house with 20 people, and would eat mostly food obtained by dumpster diving.
Two sets of headphones would help out a lot. And is there no other place in your dorm building you can study?