Hi all, I have been having a few problems with one of my flatmates and I was wondering if anyone with more experience could help me out, as this is my first time living in a flat with friends. This will probably be a long post (partly just allowing me to vent a bit), so thank you if you manage to make it to the end! I am a girl and I live with two girls who I knew from my university halls last year and my course. While I like them both and they are good people, I find that one of them is becoming quite possessive. I'll call her 'B'. I get on with my other flatmate really well - I'll call her 'K'. The problem with B is that we also take a lot of the same modules, so I both live with her and see her a lot on campus. She seems to be struggling to make new friends of her own and sort of clings to me in lectures, when I want to talk to my friends that I only get to see at uni. Although she has not outright stated this, I get the impression that she thinks that I can either talk to her or talk to my other friends. She even says that she had a dream that I decided the other friends were more important than she was. When I try to include her in conversations, she often is just very quiet or sullen. I do not really think that my friends from lectures are the type of people that B would normally hang out with, which is fine and I understand that. But she does not make an effort to make other friends of her own and seems to just want my attention. Sometimes she does talk to other people that she knows, which is good and I do not get jealous when she is talking to other people. I have started leaving for uni earlier just so that I don't have to walk there with her and I get a break, but I always say that I have to go and print something etc. I feel like I have to make excuses because if I ever try to politely say that I need to be alone or something, I am made to feel a bit guilty and she becomes a little passive aggressive. Another issue is that she desperately craves physical contact and hugs all the time, but I rarely initiate physical contact because things like hugs make me uncomfortable. I get a sense of closeness from good conversations, acceptance, understanding and laughter, whereas her sense of closeness with people correlates more with the levels of physical affection. This is definitely where we clash, and I don't really know how to resolve this because she is unhappy if she doesn't get enough physical affection and I am unhappy if I don't have enough personal space - neither of us is wrong, we are just different in that respect. She also comes into my room far too often, and it disrupts my train of thought while I am working. If I need to talk to one of my flatmates but I think that they are busy, I tend to message them on our group Facebook chat so that they can answer it when they choose to look at it. If I don't mind being distracted then I sit in the kitchen as it is a communal space. K does exactly the same thing. B has a tendency to judge people very quickly and put people in boxes as either 'bad' or 'good' and often speaks very negatively about life in general, making it a bit exhausting to have a conversation with her. I often try to encourage her to see the positives in certain situations that she has labelled as negative but it is proving quite a challenge. I always know that when she comes home, if I ask her how her day was she will sigh and come out with a load of negatives about really small things that happen to everyone that most people just get over very quickly, and I'm gradually enjoying the time I spend with her less and less. It is becoming more and more clear that when she meets a new person, she has a goal in mind and overthinks where the relationship is going. I feel like other people sense this and it puts them off forming a proper friendship which is why she is struggling to make friends, combined with her quick judgement of people. She frowns upon the fact that the friends I have from my course are more acquaintances and that we do not have deep meaningful relationships. I am fine with this - I know that I have other close friends and I see nothing wrong with spending time with people who are just acquaintances (only been at uni for a year...), because I enjoy their company and they are nice people. I am more open to the fact that I may become close friends with one or two of them, but because I do not have a goal in mind, I am more relaxed about our friendship, whereas B tries to force her way into friendships too quickly and is not open to the idea that spending time with an acquaintance is good, and may even develop into a good friendship. The point is, she seems very impatient, whereas I have close friends whom I may have known for years and years as acquaintances but as we got older we became closer and spent more time together, and now we talk about everything. I know that she has issues from her past - she talks very bitterly about high school all of the time and how everyone was very bitchy and made fun of her. I feel like she needs to let go of the past and not continue to let it bother her. She is also extremely close to her parents and has to call them every day and has long conversations with them. Her mother freaks out if she is late calling or something. I also get the impression that her parents do not have much faith in her and expect her to fail at certain things, so she lacks a lot of confidence and self esteem. Last night she was crying for an hour and a half about her lack of close relationships at uni, and whilst I felt bad for her, I also felt like I was coming under attack for my friendships with other people from my course, and my lack of physical affection. I felt very much like I had been put into the 'bad' box in her head. My other flatmate, K, is also the kind of person that does not give much physical affection. Leading up to this, B had been very passive aggressive and would not talk to us, which is generally her way of dealing with problems. When we were not living in such close quarters last year, I enjoyed her company much more but I feel like the current situation is not working out. I would like it to though, because she is a nice person and I really enjoy living with K. I just want it to stop being awkward, and not have to feel like I need to hide in my room to get some peace from B. Any advice would be appreciated - thank you for reading this far! Islander.
That is a really awkward situation to be in and I can say that having been on both sides of the fence. I don’t make friends easily so I tend to be jealously protective of the ones I have. I’m aware that I do it, though, so I’m able to work not to be that way. She might not be aware of what she’s doing. She clearly craves attention and affection, but also has trouble making friends. On the other side, my roommate my first two years of college was like that. We both came from the same high school so hanging out together freshman year was only natural. As time went on, however, we realized we had personality conflicts that clashed. I started to make new friends while the ones she’d made freshman year moved out of the dorms and were too busy to spend a lot of time with her. I didn’t handle it the best. We didn’t communicate about our relationship the way we should have. How do K and B get along? If you wanted to “stage an intervention” so to speak with B, would K be on board with helping? Passive aggression is hard to deal with because it’s passive by its very nature. Confrontation might help to clear the air between the two of you but avoidance is a hard habit to break. Does your school have a counseling office that she could go to? It’s clear that she has a lot of things from her past affecting her ability to make friends. I understand the drive to skip the awkward “getting to know you” phase of friendships, but at the same time it’s not possible. Deep lasting friendships don’t just form overnight. If you don’t want to suggest directly that she seek counseling, you could always grab a brochure and just leave it on the counter. What about clubs? Are there any organizations that are relevant to her interests that she could join? That’s a great way to meet people because you know going in that they’re already interested in at least one thing that you are. The only other advice that I can give you is to set boundaries. If you’re in your room and need that time to be alone, set up some kind of “do not disturb” sign. Let her know that you need that time to yourself. You are not there to always satisfy her needs at the expense of your own. Talk to her about the fact that you don’t enjoy physical affection. Just because she craves it doesn’t mean you have to provide if it makes you uncomfortable. If you’re willing, set aside time to hang out with her and be clear that the time is solid. It can just be a movie night every Friday night, or hanging out for a couple hours on a Sunday afternoon. If she realizes that you’ll have time for her even if you are out with other friends the rest of the time, that might help her relax. Not sure if any of that was helpful or not.
Hi Aspen, Thank you for your reply. It's interesting to hear from someone who is more aware of their tendencies - I hope B becomes more like you! K and B get along well. The thing is, K tends to repress her feelings, as she has admitted, and is very nice to everyone, always putting herself last. In short, she is very non-confrontational. We have not really discussed B in much detail, because neither of us wants to create an awkward atmosphere of two against one, or of bitching behind someone's back. However, I do get the slight impression that K sometimes finds B's behaviour exhausting. K tends to take my 'side' when trying to convince B to change the way she thinks about some things. We try to do it constructively and positively, making it clear to B that we are trying to help her and that we care about her. She generally responds well and understands that we are her friends. I have already suggested therapy to her which she thinks is a good idea, but she won't be able to start until January. Regarding clubs and societies, she was a member of one last year but has decided that they have rejected her and don't like her. She joined a different society this year and has come to pretty much the same conclusion. It's very hard to accurately know what is happening because facts seem to be slightly distorted in her mind as she tends to overanalyse every little thing that happens. Part of the problem is that as an only child she is pretty spoilt by her parents. I often feel like K and I have been put in the place of her parents, even though she is the oldest in the flat. She often expects too much, rarely does any household chores without me having to ask her to do them, and when she does do them she often gets one of us to help her out. She also occasionally decides our plans, saying something like 'It doesn't matter that the play I asked you to go to with me will run on quite late - it's not like you're going to go out afterwards'. Well maybe I am going out? I am just getting fed up of her trying to dictate passive aggressively who I should be friends with and how I should spend my time. That's a good idea - I should probably reiterate when I want my privacy, and more outwardly state when I am trying to do work. If she reacts passive aggressively I guess there's not much I can do but wait for her to get over it. Another problem is that whenever I suggest that we watch a film or something she'll often say she doesn't really feel like it or doesn't want to watch it, which is fine and I understand that. But when she suggests things she gets upset if people don't want to or can't do them - and I'm not a fan of double standards. Thank you for your advice - it was very helpful! Islander
