Update p. 2- cousin and catty roommate

[cm8]

I agree with everyone, document, inform and expect a great outcome, If that fails, put it on you tube then cc them the video and I'm sure they will find a resolution then

 

[snarlingcoyote]

FWIW, my first semester as a freshman, for some reason one of my 3 roommates didn't like me. I was unaware of this until she came to me and said the RA had said I could leave her room.

I thought she meant to vacate the next semester, so I just absented myself from the room unless I was sleeping. (The room got messier and messier and my books just stacked up. . .I was never in the room to do anything, you see.) She stole $20 from my sock drawer, I confronted her, and the next semester she moved out.

The other roommate and I got along fine. We kept our big 3 person room and only had to have 2 people in it. Go figure.

If I had planned it, it would've been passive agressive, but honestly, I was simply that clueless about how mean girls operate. Think Luna Lovegoodish, really.

Intentional cluelessness, when paired with extraordinary good will may be passive agressive, but sometimes the best approach is not always the forward one.

 

[RitaE]

My advice

1. If possible put in for a room switch. Some colleges have a procedure in place and some don't. Make the Princess somebody else's problem.

2. Ask her what she is doing to get involved with other people. Has she made friends with anybody else on the floor? Found any clubs or activities to scope out? She doesn't need to be friends with the roommate and having real friends beyond the roommate will make what is going on more insignificant. Also mention to start looking around for next semester's/next year's roommate. It's much better when you can choose somebody you know over the random computer assignment.

3. Brainstorm with her on some good comeback phrases.

Princess roommate: "Oh that's an interesting shirt. Did you buy it at WalMart?"
Your Cousin: "Piss off you snotty cow."

People like this girl feed off of knowing they make others feel inferior.

4. You can have her talk the RA but unless the roommate actually is bullying and threatening it is not likely to do much good. Let's face it. The girl is 18 years old and has probably sat through the Gold Rule We Should Treat Everybody With Respect! lecture about a hundred times. If it hasn't worked yet, it probably isn't going to work now.

 

[redlight]

2. Ask her what she is doing to get involved with other people. Has she made friends with anybody else on the floor? Found any clubs or activities to scope out? She doesn't need to be friends with the roommate and having real friends beyond the roommate will make what is going on more insignificant. Also mention to start looking around for next semester's/next year's roommate. It's much better when you can choose somebody you know over the random computer assignment.

Yep, that was one of the first things I told my cousin. I think she is making friends.

I'm not sure whether the queen bee knows that she's making people feel bad or whether she just lacks a filter.

 

[bumbershoot]

Tell her to pay for a single room. After a disaster of a roommate my freshmen year, it was the best decision I ever made at college. lol

Not all colleges make those available to freshmen, and they are likely all full already.

I know two seperate girls who went to their RA's... biggest mistake ever. Since they (the RA's) basically told both of them to suck it up and put their big girl panties on because this is the real world and you are going to have to deal with people who aren't nice it made things ten times worse!

That's horrible! And, having been through RA interviews where they asked for your answer to umpteen questions that might come up, I KNOW that my school's housing department would NOT have appreciated such answers! What is the *point* of an RA in the dorm if everyone's supposed to just deal with it on their own.

At my university the RAs would have, at the very least, helped those people figure out how to talk to the roommate, and if it continued, the RAs would have talked to the roommate for them. Trying to resolve it, trying to help the students resolve it.

Sounds like the RAs your friends went to just wanted to *be* RAs, not ACT as RAs!

I lived in a quad my freshman year and we had trouble with one of the roommates. She hated *all* of us for some reason. (It was 4 strangers in a room. It wasn't like the rest of us knew each other and she was the odd man out.) She hated how one of us brushed her hair. Another of us studied too much. She thought I was too cheerful in the mornings (me! I don't think I've been called cheerful all that often!)

Holy moly! For the part that I quoted, I was right there with you, as the quad next door had problems just like that! But then it got worse, wow. In the case of my neighbors, the three that liked each other found another friend down the hall, and she moved in. Their old roomie swapped. What's funny is that their old roomie was the biggest tomboy in the universe, ONLY interested in her martial arts and if she wasn't in class, she was back in her hometown (a solid hour away) taking tae kwon do and just being at home. And her new roommate was the GIRLIEST person ever, ONLY interested in her boyfriend. So neither of them was ever there in the room, and it worked out very well! (strangely, the tomboy roomie, it turns out, took TKD at the gym where my now-husband took it, and they knew each other! but hubby is 3 grades younger than me.)




OP I hope that she can work it out. I never dealt with anyone like that (though sometimes I wish my friends had been, at least, honest with me...might have kept from the freshmen, um, 30 if they'd been honest!) but those around me certainly had roomie issues, and the RAs were always there to *help*.

 

[redlight]

OP I hope that she can work it out. I never dealt with anyone like that (though sometimes I wish my friends had been, at least, honest with me...might have kept from the freshmen, um, 30 if they'd been honest!) but those around me certainly had roomie issues, and the RAs were always there to *help*.

Thanks!

There's tactful honesty, and then there's cattiness. As someone who has battled my weight (including the freshman 15), I know that cattiness doesn't help.

My cousin is beautiful, but she could afford to lose some weight. She has my build, and her mother loves to cook. I had given my cousin tips on how to afford the freshman 15 before she started.

 

[redlight]

Update: The roommate moved out of the dorms. I'm not sure of the circumstances.

 

[cm8]

Update: The roommate moved out of the dorms. I'm not sure of the circumstances.

hope that your cousin gets someone else that is much nicer now!

 

[redlight]

hope that your cousin gets someone else that is much nicer now!

I hope so too!

 

[Hannathy]

hope that your cousin gets someone else that is much nicer now!

well could they be much worse?


yes I know they could but you know.......probably not keeping my fingers crossed