The One, Six Times Over

You came down from the sky and into your parents’  arms and you were forced to live with them; the next time living with someone is believed to be with your soon to-be spouse. This at least is how it was but nowadays, University has changed the timing and the way we live with people. Counting to ten doesn’t work and the sit on the naughty mat method may apply to your younger brothers but not your flat mates, you can’t even shut yourself away in the kitchen moaning about them with Ben & Jerry’s because you would be caught, which leads me to ask the question what can we do then to love our flat mates?

Whether it be your weird addiction to blueberries and chocolate, the fact every Sunday you enjoy walking around with a face mask on, or the fact that you listen to Disney soundtracks over and over again, these people will soon enough find out every habit or yours. Why should this be such a negative though? You are showing yourself off to the world. No matter what, you should be proud to stand tall and present your ‘this is who I am’ face.

It is close enough a fact soon to be published in the Oxford Encyclopedia that there are different kinds of flat mates. No doubt, there will be that one, the one who gets to you, the one who possibly found you devouring your chocolate blueberries whilst wearing a facemask whilst listening to the Disney theme tunes. Whatever the reason, to save yourself time moaning and groaning followed by an embarrassing trip to the accommodation services to tattle tale, you can glide through the problem. If you have given your flat mate the benefit of the doubt but the washing up is still on the side, come together as a flat and try discussing the issue. Numbers are stronger and once the problem causer has identified that this is a matter irritating everyone else, they may just stop. I happened to be living with 6 females and 6 males and funnily enough, they all began dating each other, we did get a name as a flat but after initially struggling with the accidental catching them in the act and then hating group dinners I saw it as an opportunity to get out of my house, explore and build closer relationships with my course mates.

Living with adolescents at Uni or friends in your twenties, it the opportune moment to create wonderful memories. If strapped for cash, you can collectively join together and cook or stay in and watch movie marathons together. If it comes to splitting the cooking and cleaning though, decide to cook. It’s a lot less messy. If worse comes to worse, you can also steal your flat mates clothing from the shower room, poster their room telling them to clean up or even load their dirty dishes in their room. From my experience, these are three effective ways to get your way.