Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome back to my channel. My name's Paige, and if you've never been here before, I make all different types of videos. I try to do a lot of self-help videos or videos on how to improve yourself or be a more productive person. So if you like that kind of content, please subscribe and like this video. Today, we're going to be talking about how to be a better roommate. So what can you do to be the best roommate you can be, to have the best experience living with roommates? So without further ado, let's just get right into it. So I have seven tips for you on what you can do to be the best roommate you possibly can be. We're going to start with number one, which is to go in with the right expectations. So before you move in with your roommates or before you pick your roommates, you need to think about what type of expectations you already have in your head. Do you expect that when you live with this person, you're going to be best friends or are you just going to be acquaintances who just deal with each other and live in the same place? How was it like for you when you lived at home with your family? What type of dynamics did you deal with living with your family? Did you have siblings growing up and how did that affect how you dealt with your siblings? Were you guys good friends? Did you not really talk that much? Everyone has different experiences growing up and that really affects how they treat their roommates once they're in a situation where they live with new people who may not be family or friends. Do you expect them to be clean? Do you think that they're going to be always cleaning up after themselves? You guys are going to share the common area and keep it spotless all the time. And lastly, do you expect them to know what you're thinking? Do you think that they're always going to know exactly what's going through your head? Every time you're upset, do you think they're going to know why you're upset and how to fix it? Do they know exactly how you react to problems? No, they don't know any of these things. So these are just questions to get you started thinking about your expectations of living with other people and to think about how you can change your expectations to have a better experience. The second thing I'm going to talk about is have a list of non-negotiables. So you need to go ahead, get a piece of paper, sit down and just write out a list of things that you could not deal with if you had to live with roommates. What are those items that if you had to deal with them, you would just literally go crazy. For me, one of those things is someone who constantly wants to throw parties or have people over late at night. I'm a big homebody and I don't really like there to be constant guests in my place. I'd much rather it be me and my roommate and we just spend our time here. The only time we usually have friends over is if we're hanging out with them together. So some of your non-negotiables might be about cleaning. Do you want to always have a clean common area? Do you expect to have quiet time? Do you need complete quiet to go to sleep? Do you want your roommate to be sleeping at the same time as you or at least quiet while you're trying to sleep? What are those expectations you have? And then put those into non-negotiables. I do not like there to be loud noise when I'm trying to sleep and I don't like there to be loud noise when I'm sleeping in the morning either. So in general, me and my roommate have kind of an unspoken rule that after around 10pm before 7am we try to not be too too loud. We don't like to blast music or go banging around the apartment in general. We're usually very considerate of each other. But the thing is a lot of people don't have that consideration built into their habits. When they grew up as a family, maybe everyone already had the same schedule so they never had to worry about being quiet during different times of the day. So it's something you need to think about and decide, can I deal with this or not? And if you can't, write it on that list. So the third thing I'm going to talk about is to always communicate. Now this might be really obvious. Obviously we need to communicate, we need to tell each other what's going on, etc. etc. But going back to points 1 and 2, what are your expectations and what are your non-negotiables? Now that you know those, you need to communicate them with these people. People you're thinking about living with or even people you already live with. Tell your roommates your non-negotiables. Get feedback from them if those are even possible things that they're able to do. Find out what their non-negotiables are. A lot of times people live with someone else and they never talk about these things and then once they're living together, they constantly have these battles and these problems because no one ever set the expectation for the other that hey, you're going to keep the common area clean. Or hey, you're going to go to bed or stay quiet after 9pm. If no one says those things, it's almost invalid for you to be aggravated whenever they don't do those things. So setting up that communication and those guidelines beforehand will really help you out in the long run. Another important thing about communication is don't text, just talk. Don't text your roommate and say, hey please clean up after yourself. Next time you see her in person, just let her know. Or if anything, the best advice I can give for a situation like that is to just clean up for her and then let her know, hey by the way, you left your dishes and I went ahead and cleaned them up for you because I know you're going through a lot right now or I know you have an exam tomorrow or a big proposal due at work. So I handled that for you, but next time let's try to keep this area clean. You want to show them that you care and you're willing to help out at times, but that they shouldn't expect you to always clean up after them because you don't want to get into that cycle. Lastly with communication, do not be passive aggressive. And I know this can be really hard for some people, me included. I've had times where I've just been passive aggressive, but it's not a healthy way to communicate with people that you live with, people that you're friends with, people you care about, anyone in general. You should never be passive aggressive to someone else. So if you have something that you're bothered by, just tell them what's going on. Don't just be passive aggressive and assume that they're going to read your mind and figure it out because guess what? They're not. They're just, they're not. Even your best friends won't always be able to figure out what's going on and why you're upset. They might think that it's something completely unrelated to them. So always just communicate and tell them what you're feeling. So tip number four is know when to say something. So I said that you need to tell your roommates when you're upset or something bothers you, but do you always tell them? Because sometimes that might be a little excessive. If you find that you're going to be telling your roommate every single day that she's doing something wrong, then you probably should keep some of those things to yourself. I understand that sometimes we just have bad roommates who never listen, but in general, the more you tell them to do something, the more agitated they're going to be by you and they're not going to want to change that thing about themselves. You don't want to be their parent. You want to be their roommate. So some of the things that I think about when I'm deciding whether or not it's worth it for me to tell someone what's going on, whether in a roommate situation or just in general in our friendship, I think about these few things. Is this something that's going to, in the future, affect how I treat this person? In a week from now, am I still going to treat them differently because I'm bothered about what happened last week? Because if the answer is yes, then you really should talk to them. Don't hold things in and let it affect later conversations because that's not productive and it's just going to cause drama where it does not need to be. The next question I ask is how close are you with that person? Is it someone you really care about? Is it one of your close friends? Because if it is, then most likely you need to talk to them about the problem. Even if it's not that big of a deal, if it's something that upset you, it's always good to tell your friends about it. Because with someone that you don't know very well, it might not bother you and come up in a couple weeks, but with someone who you really care about, it might come up five months later for all you know. If you never talked about it, they're not going to know to not do it again. The next question I ask myself is how upset am I? A lot of times I like to sleep on a problem to just make sure that I'm not extra emotional that day or overreacting because of other things that happen throughout my day. Because a lot of times when we're upset about something, it usually stems from potentially something else. We had a bad day at school. We had a bad day at work. We overslept. All of these things happen during your day. And when you get home and for example, your roommate left a mess on the couch and you just wanted to sit down and watch TV, you might just be extremely frustrated with that person. So in general, how upset are you? Do you think it's worth talking about? And lastly, have you discussed this topic with them before? Is this a reoccurring problem that just seems to keep coming up no matter what you say? Or is it a new problem that you've never experienced before? If it's something that continues to happen and you keep telling them how to fix it in the same way, then maybe you need to rethink your process. Is there a way that you can redirect them to do it a different way? For example, if you have a roommate who always forgets to take out the trash. She always forgets it's her turn to take out the trash, even though you guys have something set where you know, you take turns taking out the trash. But she just always seems to forget. What might be helpful is to put something on the fridge that says whose turn it is to take out the trash. Next time the trash is full, she might just look at the list and go, oh, it's my turn. Oops, I forgot. But if there's no list for her to look at, it might just be in the back of her brain. Okay, the trash is full, but whatever. I don't know whose turn it is, so I'll figure it out later. And that might become a day later, two days later, and now you're on the other side frustrated thinking, hello, it's your turn to take out the trash. Just think about whether it's something you've already discussed and how to go about bringing up the topic. So the fifth tip I have for you is common spaces should be happy spaces. In general, when you're living with roommates, you're most likely sharing a lot of common areas. You're sharing your kitchen, your living room, potentially your bathroom, some shared closets, your laundry room. A lot of things get shared when you live with other people. And I think it's a good practice to say that your common spaces should be happy spaces. When you come home, if you're in a bad mood, try to at least keep things upbeat and happy when you come in and greet your roommate. Because if your roommate's in the kitchen cooking dinner, you don't need to come in in a terrible mood and just sour everyone else's mood because you had a bad day. I know it's hard to do that sometimes, but I think it's good practice to learn to manage our emotions and not just explode with emotion as soon as we start talking to someone. So along with that idea, a happy space is a clean space, at least in my opinion, and I would think in most people's opinions. So keep that shared area clean. When you're done using the living room, clean your stuff up after. Bring it back to your room. When you're done using the kitchen, put your stuff away and don't leave things out on the counter. Make sure that there's space for everyone to use anytime they need to. It shouldn't be that you're taking up half of the living room at all times with your shoes on the floor and your backpack on the couch. Leave it the way that you would hope to find it the next day. That's a good rule of thumb. The number six tip I have for you is to don't beat yourself up if it's not working. I know that roommates can be difficult and sometimes it's really hard to live with someone else, especially if it's someone you don't mesh with or someone that you just really don't get along with. If it's one of your good friends and then you move in together and you realize that you're having all of these problems, some people are just better as friends and not roommates. So don't take it personally and beat yourself up if it just seems to not be working. And then there's some people like me who just aren't good at living with other people in general. Although I've had six different roommates so far, I in general know that I enjoy living by myself more. I've lived by myself for a couple months here and there, and I know it's my favorite way to live. I'm a very particular person and I'm aware of that. So it causes a lot of problems when I live with roommates. It's something I'm working on all the time and talking to my different roommates about my expectations and my non-negotiables has definitely helped in the past. But if you're someone who just would rather live alone, don't beat yourself up. I know it's hard to live with roommates and sometimes finances make it necessary to live with other people. We can't always afford to live alone in a one bedroom apartment or a studio, but if that's the case, just don't worry about it because someday hopefully you'll be able to live alone and just make that one of your goals for the future. And the last tip I have for you is number seven, it's not forever. So if you're having a really hard time living with your roommates, it's only one year. You can pick different roommates for next year. You can pick less or more roommates. You can change the apartment you live in. Just remember that before you re-sign a lease, really think about if you have a good idea of whether you could live with these people again. Sometimes we're required to sign leases way in advance to when we live in that apartment. So if you have to do that, just make sure you really think through whether or not this is a good person that matches you as a roommate and you want to live with them again. Overall, it's a good learning experience even if it doesn't work out. I've had many, many roommate horror stories that I don't need to get into, but overall I know that it's taught me a lot about myself and what I want in roommates or want in a potential partner or friendship. And it's really helped me mature and grow up in general. Dealing with different people throughout your life is inevitable and learning to deal with different types of personalities is a really great trait to have. So don't worry, it'll work out and everything's going to be okay. Well, that's all I have for you. Thank you so much for watching. I'm really curious to see what your non-negotiables are. So leave a comment down below listing your number one non-negotiable that you could not deal with if you had to live with roommates or if you already do. And if you have any questions for me about living with roommates or anything else for that matter, also leave it down below. I love answering your questions and I hope to hear from you soon. Bye.