Friend left out when choosing dorms for next year

juillet
Wed, 14 Dec 2016 02:59:10 +0000

You are worried about the other friend stressing you out. That is selfish. It’s up to you to manage and control your stressors.

It is not selfish to recognize one’s own anxiety triggers and avoid those triggers, even if the trigger is not another person. Realizing that this is likely to become a volatile situation is managing and controlling your stressors. And yes, two highly anxious people living together can potentially feed upon each other’s anxiety and exacerbate the situation. It’s good that the OP is realizing this up front.

Depression and anxiety are not the same, but they often co-occur and influence/amplify each other.

Either way, though, I think you all are blowing this way out of proportion. I’m gonna name your friends Anna (your roommate), Callie (the third friend who is always in your room) and Danielle (the fourth friend who stays alone a lot).

1. You don’t have to live with the people who are your friends. You can still be friends as long as you make the effort. So regardless of whether 2, 3, or all four of you live together, you can seek each other out and be friends. Look at it this way - you’re all friends now and you don’t all live together, right?

2. If it is “awkward” for the four of you to split up into two groups with a third roommate, likely it is the four of you that are making the situation awkward. For example, it seems like Callie is an issue. Your third roommate may be annoyed by Callie always hanging around and practically living with you when she doesn’t actually live there. If Callie rooms with Danielle, she might be in a situation where she feels more comfortable - because she gets along with at least one other roommate - and doesn’t have to basically live with you. Then you guys can hang out together elsewhere.

But if you are the type of friend group that always needs to be together 24/7, ignores and excludes the third roommate, and are generally going to annoy the heck out of your third roommates, please do everyone a favor and just move in together.

3. Even if you, Anna, and Callie decide to move together - why would Danielle feel “terrible”? You all go to the same college. It’s not like you live across town or something - likely you’re in campus walking distance of each other. You’re going to see each other all the time. Honestly, if three of you are all sharing a triple together that makes things easier, because there won’t be a third roommate to make feel all awkward when Danielle inevitably starts basically living there. Or you could just treat the dorm room as a place to sleep and find other places on campus where the four of you can hang out together.

Honestly, I think the best solution is for you, Anna, and Callie to move into a triple and then Danielle finds a triple with two other people. She can still hang out with you guys. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice the friendship unless Danielle or someone else gets overly dramatic.