I am roughly two weeks away from completing my first year at college and I feel like I grew a lot as a person this year, in many ways. One of the most recent ways was deciding to move into a three-person apartment. Now, these last two or three months I have been aware of this change in my life and I was really trying to think about it as an adult, thinking of the best way to conserve water and electricity so our bills wouldn't get too high and also thinking about the people I would be rooming with. I had always heard that rooming with a close friend could be a very bad idea and I had experienced a small version of a bad roommate one year at band camp in high school so I believed this warning and really looked at the two potential roommates carefully.
As I was doing this I realized that one of the roommates matched my personality really well and we would get along really well and probably have a lot of fun together, however, the other roommate was another story. She is very distant with most people, very slow to make friends, highly unsocial, and seemed very work resistant. There were many things she did and said on multiple occasions that bothered me and showed me she might not be the best roommate for myself and I thought that rooming with her would be bad for me.
I attempted to talk to her about it multiple times, taking the most logical stance I could without necessarily letting my own feelings get involved because I thought it would only escalate the problems I was seeing further. In all my efforts I was met with either empty promises and her very clearly stated wants, which only made me more uneasy and more worried about being her roommate. I and the first roommate In mentioned, the one who I would get along well with, both started questioning the roommate situation and had several sit-downs with the potential roommate to truly express our mutual feelings and thoughts which failed in most cases.
After the entire thing was sorted the third roommate and I had had a major fight which involved a lot more than just the roommate situation and I felt extremely torn and hurt by this. The girl was worried that if she and I were not roommates then that meant we were no longer friends and whenever she brought up that point I said: "that has nothing to do with each other and that my being resistant to her being roommate had nothing to do with our status of friends". This was not good enough for her.
When everything finally reached its climax and the fight had gone way too far out of hand I confessed that I felt like she was a stranger and was no longer my friend at all because she had been treating terribly and I felt like she was only doing what she wanted and was refusing to hear anything that differed from what she wanted. To that, she said that she would change and that she wanted to be my friend and that I was her best friend so she would do anything she needed to do.
I was feeling manipulated and lost and out of patience because I was confused and she just kept talking about things that were completely different from where the arguments were directed. So, in the end, we both said things that were harsh, rude, truthful, and annoying and our "friendship" was a distant memory. I hated this.
Most of the time when I am in fights with friends I go out of my way to find solutions to at least try and salvage friendships even if it takes months or in the case of one of my closest friends a year. This situation felt completely opposite of that and I felt robbed and angry and sad because I felt like this all started because she refused to listen to us in the first place and I felt responsible because I had stated my feelings on things being said over texts and in person and eventually let my feelings get involved in this. I even went as far as to block her in every way I could because she had made me so upset and angry, but that wasn't even the worst part for me.
When everything was said and done and I had blocked her, she had texted all of her friends some of which were mutual friends of ours saying she and I were no longer friends and that she was better than me. She had also told several people that she "did not believe in best friends so she would never have called me that", which was a complete lie because I had a text message that was sent from her saying the words "you're my best friend". I had no clue how to feel, everyone said I had done the right thing, I had handled the situation like an adult for the most part and that the girl was obviously not ready for anything close to the adult life college was supposed to be preparing her for. My only problem is, I feel like I did things wrong or backward in some way.
Throughout this entire thing I stated my feelings and thoughts on her words and messages only stating my issues as they came up in civil conversations but she still wound up "hurt" and she thought I was her friend so I should have protected that, but why should I feel guilty because of her? Why am I worried about her happiness, when she obviously did not care about mine in the slightest? The easiest answer I have found is I shouldn't, she made her choice and I made mine and in the end, she is not slated to be my roommate and she is blocked and out of my life. So why do I feel this way?
In short, I wouldn't want to be treated like this or be stuck in this place where I am forced to choose my happiness at the loss of someone else's. I am stuck second guessing my choices because I feel guilty about being happy. Which is utterly ridiculous! After all this drama and bad reactions and her complete attempts of manipulation, the last thing I should be is upset because she was the one who had her feelings hurt and is liking like we should all care about her more than me. Even in the ways I have been telling people about our falling out is completely different from hers and I feel like we are both showing our true colors in this fallout. All of our friends are seeing that she is an attention seeker looking for compliments and boosts to her self confidence whereas I am worried about others and saying I understand if they need to stop being my friend because they are closer to her. I even would understand if everyone stayed friends with both of us and we just never all hang out all together again.
Where she is lying to people and trying to keep all her friends for her own selfish reasons I am trying to think of others and that is more important and held in higher regard by most people. I guess I am happy about getting what I initially wanted but I am not happy it had to be done in that way. I need to be happy before I worry about other peoples happiness in these kinds of situations. I am very happy that this happened now and everyone can look back on it and say they're proud of the way I handled things and the fact that I was mature even if I still have more to learn. I hope I can find real happiness with my roommates and really have a good experience in the apartment next school year.
