Maggie and I had been living together for almost a year, when we welcomed Laura as our third roommate. Laura was cool and friendly, but my conversations with her never really extended past, “Hey, how was your day?” We were nice to each other when we happened to meet up in the kitchen, but we never got to that next level of actual friendship.

That is, until one day about three months later, when we both realized we were angry with Maggie.

Maggie had decided she wanted to break her lease and move out so she could travel for a few months — and she wanted Laura and me to figure out the details. She stopped speaking to us when we expressed our concerns about how this was all going to work. We were all in our late 20s, but it was starting to feel more like middle school with each passing day. In retrospect, it’s all quite silly. But at the time, Maggie's abandonment of responsibility was all I could think about.

Even though Maggie and I had been living together for a year, we never really bonded. I would sometimes invite her to join me when I was going out with friends, and on occasion, she would. But I would always refer to her as my roommate — my messy roommate — not my friend. So as soon as I got the feeling that Laura and I maybe shared a frustration with Maggie, I hazarded saying something to her about it. Sure enough, I was right. We suddenly had more to say to each other than casual greetings. And a friendship was born.

Before we knew it, Laura and I were hanging out in her room, complaining about Maggie. We started going to the gym together. She picked up some tea for me when I was sick. We even planned a New Year’s Eve party together.

I was happy to have a new friend in Laura, but I also felt kind of disgusted with myself that our friendship only took off only after we bonded over our mutual dislike of another woman — especially since, once I got to know Laura, I realized there were plenty of reasons we should have been pals in the first place.

I started thinking about how this isn’t the first time I’ve bonded with another woman over gossip about a roommate. I knew my friends had similar stories. So, I wondered, why the hell do women do this?