6 tips to avoid hating your roommates during lockdown
So you’re in lockdown with a select few. Maybe you’re in a bohemian paradise where one roommate is making sourdough while another braids your hair. Maybe you’re stuck with a couple who have decided to have sex like it really is the end of the world. Maybe you’re with your family — we’re praying for you.
Whatever your isolation bubble is, issues are going to come up. Here are some tips to help you keep your cool and survive the social pressure-cooker:
1) Forgive the things that bug you
Perhaps your roommate is a mouth-breather. He simply cannot get the oxygen he needs while eating unless he gapes his mouth open real wide and gasps while he chews. If breakfast is a chorus of slurps and munches — try focusing in on the noises and empathize with them. Can you reframe them as technical sounds? Fascinating mechanisms of the human body? Maybe not.
Either way, separate the person from what bugs you. We all do things we don’t know we do, and we all have different capabilities to put up with them. Give your buddy a break and get used to the wonderful new soundscape around you.
2) Self-isolate from isolation
If you’re spending time together in a shared space, it’s important to get the heck out of there often. Pre-empt social burnout instead of mopping up the mess. Give yourself time-outs often. Go outside if your government permits it. Step away from your bubble buds!
Try leaving the house and ringing the doorbell. This novel interaction should reset your roommates’ perceptions of you, making you into a shiny new person to interact with. Plus, it’s been a long time since someone rang the doorbell. Might be nice and nostalgic to hear it.
3) Socialize outside your household (virtually)
You’re not stuck with who you’re stuck with. Get on an app and chat. Friends, family, people you haven’t spoken to in years, they’re all a click away. How about that guy you met on the beach in Colombia three years ago — how is he doing? Probably still hot. Strike up an international flirtation. It’s not like you’re out on dates anyway. The world is your semi-oyster.
If your Wifi isn’t great, now is the time to fix that. Get on the phone with your internet provider and really hash it out with customer service until your service is tip top — you finally have the time to be on hold for hours. This is not the time for dropped calls and frozen screens... unless you find that technical malfunctions are a handy way to get out of family chats.
4) Let that shit go
So a fight broke out? Let that shit go. What matters right now is that you all get along. It could be a long time stuck together and it’s going to be hell if you hate each other. Drop the beef, keep things sweet.
If something bubbles up, attempt all-time holiness and forgive and forget. Be a beacon of holiness and peace in your household. You’re in a robe most of the time anyway so you’re half way there. If it really isn’t working, try morphing your personality to something people enjoy a bit more. Or move out after lockdown and pretend until then.
5) Watch the wine
I would love to say: Drink all the wine! But the truth is that we are stuck together and this is a bad time to start dancing with the dependence devil. If you NEED a drink, don’t drink! Set times you won’t drink before (popular songs suggest 5 o’clock).
Enjoy a good tipple here and there but find other ways to manage, like knitting or bread-making, so your liver and your mind come out of this thing ok. Especially if you’re the kind who cries or fights when drunk, skip the booze and avoid the drama. Consider this Rehab Lite.
6) Put the nitty-gritty on a roster
Make a schedule. Especially if you don’t all see eye-to-eye on expectations of cleanliness, set up some guidelines. Draw-up a roster of who will clean what when and agree what clean means. Are we talking “bleach the walls and clean the crumbs from inside the toaster,” or are we talking “dishwasher empty and a bench wipe down”? There’s a difference! Write it all down. If something gets skipped it’ll be way easier to communicate about it with a quick passive aggressive group chat message, “Hey team, it’s cleaning day xoxo.” You all agreed — it’s not personal.
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I could keep going — outsource your therapy, make a group band, don’t cut each others hair…but you get the point.
If it all falls apart, remember: this is temporary. It will not last. Pizza, beers, and extroversion will be there to greet you when this is done.
Stay inside and stay kind.
