Hey Bonita!

I just moved back to town, and I'm living away from home in an off-campus apartment for the first time ever, after commuting to UGA for the past two years. I found my roommate with help from a Facebook student housing group, and I HATE THEM. They totally lied about everything before moving in—they are definitely not tidy, quiet and single!

The bummer is that we are both on the lease together, so I can't just kick them out, plus I just can't afford to live alone. I have plenty of friends in town, but I don't wanna be a couch surfer. I'm from a nearby town and could just start to commute again, but this has basically ruined my summer daydream of living off-campus and away from home for the first time ever.

Any tips? Thanks!

Honestly, my first piece of advice to you would have been to never agree to live with someone you barely know, but it’s too late for that now. Your real options here are to move out and find a new place with a new roommate, or try to talk it out with your current roomie and make things better. Try the latter if you want, but I doubt it’ll work, because it’s very hard to teach an old (or drunk) Dawg new tricks, and she just might respond more defensively than helpfully.

I say leave. You can easily sign your portion of the lease over to a subletter, though you’ll probably lose half of your deposit or something. There’s always a smattering of rental properties that open up at the beginning of the semester, so keep an eye on the Flagpole Classifieds and let your real friends know you’re on the prowl for a new place, then move in with one of them.

I’ve been dating a guy since January. We met on a dating app, and what’s funny is that my roommate turned him down like two weeks before we got together on the same app! She really thought he was “too normie”; plus, she was offended that he celebrated certain holidays. Doesn’t matter to me, though, and we get along great. I spent the summer here, but he got back in town last month, and I was the first person he saw.

I still live with the same people, and my roommate suddenly has a problem with my boyfriend coming over. She says he uses too much of the house’s resources—I don’t know what that means—and she just doesn’t like extra people in the house, so he should only be allowed to sleep over once a week. Of course, this is the same girl who blew him off—and right into my lap—and she has remained single since.

I hate catty behavior, but I see through her flimsy reasons, and it pisses me off that she’s trying to bring our entire household into her very personal dating problems. She’s told me a few times that she doesn’t really care for him, but this seems petty beyond reason. Is my roommate trying to sabotage my relationship?

I think so. I’ve seen this behavior before, and it would be even worse if she’d actually managed to date him before you did. She’s probably embarrassed to still be single after snubbing him, only to find him with her roommate. I empathize, but there’s no need to be adversarial towards your roommate because she cuffed someone up.

Sure, get your boyfriend his own shampoo for the bathroom, but if he’s really just hanging out with you, and your roommate is making a big deal out of nothing, say so. Challenge her position, because she’s trying to bring this issue to your entire household, which could eventually lead to you being kicked out or your boyfriend being banned from the premises. Stand your ground, because you have the right to have guests in your home, and this guy is only a threat to your roommate’s ego.

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