An overbearing or annoying roommate is just a fact of college life. Mine came freshman year, when I lived with someone who always brought people over, messed up the room and then blamed me. At one point, she threatened to—in her words—”beat me all up and down the concrete.” Thankfully it didn’t come to blows, but we got pretty close a few times. However, we were friends in the beginning. Not so with UCLA students Winnie Chen and Guistinna Tun and their third roommate.
Chen, who will be starting at UCLA this fall, received what she thought would be a normal email from her future roommate. Instead what she got was a list of ludicrous demands. Demands which she quickly posted to Twitter.
My roommate that I haven’t even met… pic.twitter.com/OkJwUF8LGp
— Winnie (@miniwinnieee) September 1, 2016
In the email, an unnamed roommate aggressively demands she get a top bunk, but NOT a lofted bunk with a desk underneath. She also asserts she will be taking a white closet and the desk by the window, “Plain and simple.” The roommate threatened to turn any room arguments into a “situation” if anyone tried to argue with her upon arriving at the dorm. She then said she was sorry, “but not that sorry for the attitude.”
Apparently she had emailed both Chen and Tun several times and felt they had ignored her, so she took it upon herself to act as to make it clear “what kind of person she was.” Chen took to Twitter to clarify that part of the reason the roommate felt slighted was that she had received no email back from either roommate. But Chen went on to say that neither was used to communicating via email, and had asked the third roommate to get a Facebook to communicate with them—a request the roommate refused.
Tun fired back, telling the overzealous roommate the attitude was completely uncalled for as the roommates hadn’t met at the time of the email—and that after the email, she didn’t want to meet her.
The roommate then emailed her back and apologized for the attitude, but explained that she’s like a “time bomb” that goes off when things don’t go according to plan. She did appreciate that Chen and Tun stood up for themselves, calling it “pretty cool.” The roommate went onto say she would understand if both wanted to request a new roommate. Both tweets detailing the responses have been deleted since.
Obviously this roommate relationship didn’t seem fated to end well, so Chen tried to get her room reassigned—but didn’t hear back from housing. She has since deleted most tweets about the unpleasant interaction, and she won’t be talking about it any further since the situation is over.
Winnie and Guistinna—From a girl who has been there, just hang in there. It might not be so bad. Maybe. Possibly…Hopefully. Fingers crossed. (Oh, and document everything, just in case.)