Is OTHER wrong in the post ? POST : **Set-Up and Dynamics**

Well, it’s been a semester. So my housing is unique. I am a freshman/junior (came in with AA), who lives in campus housing with a freshman and a senior. All three of us have specialized housing as a part of a local program. We all qualified, as all three of us have a form of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Our housing is not too shabby. We live in one of the newest buildings on campus. This campus has rooms set up like this: All three of us (normally four but there isn’t enough ASD girls in our program) share a long hallway. On each end of the hallway is a bathroom we share with the closest room to it. (A &amp; B share one bathroom and C &amp; D share a bathroom). I am in A, the freshman roommate I’m having issues with lives in B, and the senior roommate I live with lives in C. We’ll refer to them by they’re room letters for now on.

C and I get along great. C is the same major as me so we bonded over that, occasionally going to lunch together and I helped her find a tutor once. C plays loud music and likes dancing in her room. Sometimes I ask her to tune it down just a bit and she’s respectful of it. Never had a problem aside from that, C is cool. It’s funny, my original academic advisor said I probably wouldn’t be good friends with C.

B and I don’t get along. It’s a shame, she reminds me of someone I once mentored and she reminds me a lot of myself. I tried to be her friend at the beginning of the semester, asking if she’d like to come to the university gardens, campus events, or have lunch. After being rejected every time, I stopped. It’s clear she didn’t want to go out and I can respect that. I too had pretty severe social anxiety stemming from my ASD, so I get she’s just not there. I leave her be. A lot of people call her a ‘hermit’ which I have mixed feelings about.

**Prior**

All three of us have signed a roommate agreement as requirement for living in our dorms. I clean the floors every week, mop them every month, and perform miscellaneous task like cleaning toilets, cleaning mold from the shower, and picking up or fixing anything where there’s an issue. B is in charge of cleaning our four glass mirrors (two in each bathroom) and taking out the trash bins (in each bathroom). C, being a senior and having motor issues, wipes down the three countertops in the hallway. Cleaning of our own rooms and such is left at our own discrecion.  We all agreed we wanted the shared space “clean” but not spotless.

Of the three of us I am the most social. I have about four friends and a significant other. So practically, I’m the only one who ever has guest over. The only guest consistently over is my s/o, the others have only come once or twice during the daytime. So when it came to agreements about how long members of the opposite sex can stay over and whether we should let eachother know when s/o’s are coming over, I let them talk. They said they needed zero notice and to make sure they leave “at a reasonable hour”. Considering a lot of curfews end at midnight, I generally believed that before this is what’s considered a reasonable hour. My boyfriend takes night classes and works during the day, so unfortunately I only get to see him kinda late in the night. Generally beginning at 8:30 and he tends to leave 10:00 or 11:00 at max.

I’m a gamer. I have a decent PC build and am a student athlete for one of our esports teams. My job is shot caller, so when I play the specific game for esports, I have to talk. I tend to talk in a monotone but happy voice. I’m often described as a flight attendant. Considering I have to speak for matches on end, I can’t afford to scream or yell. My voice is generally speaking level for a typical person when playing the game, as my normal voice is soft.

**Inciting Incident**

Two or three weeks ago the leader (L) of our program offhandedly mentioned that B had been complaining about C and I making too much noise. I felt bad, I don’t want B to be frustrated or irritated in our dorm. I know it’s hard for B to speak up. I thought being proactive was the best way to go because I didn’t want B to suffer in silence. So I had been brainstorming solutions on how to fix it. I had already modified myself pretty significantly before but with mixed signals.

I’m living on my own for the first time and a night owl. So as with any first year college student, my sleep is a wreck. I am often up during the day or late working on assignments. Weeks went by where the only time I got to game was during my esports practice. The most egregious incidents where on three separate non-consecutive occasions I had stayed up practicing the game. I was careful to keep my voice down, but it probably slipped to that typical level a few times. I guess that’s where the majority of complaints came from. So I toned it down, trying to play single player games if it’s past 12-1 o’clock or ones where I don’t have to talk. Occasionally I heat up food with the microwave in my room, but I always set it to have 1 extra second so the timer doesn’t go off. I try to be courteous since I know it’s probably irritating to have a roomate up at that time. I don’t leave my room unless I absolutely have to (such as for shower or to use the restroom) if it is past 12:30. Considering my roommate and I agreed she’d get shower for all of 8, it takes an hour for hot water to come back full, so I shower at 10. This is why I sometimes have to leave later than typical for shower, especially if my boyfriend is with me before.

B had been starting to get on my nerves for a while now. She’s generally quiet, but doesn’t abide by our roommate for cleaning duties. She’s completely her duties in their entirety only once. She usually only does trash and even neglects that sometimes. It’s irritating I have to spend extra time cleaning, especially since I cleaned our dorm alone for the entire first month. It’s a minor complaint so I’d mention it to my executive function councilor once or twice but it’s not a big enough issue to warrant more than a sticky note reminding her to clean.

Anyways, back to brainstorming. So aside from some behavioral adjustments like I listed above, I didn’t really know what else to do. I remember reading about a Gorilla at Rotterdam Zoo once who would become upset if humans looked it in the eye, which inspired me for the next solution. A redditor once said that it would be easier to modify the structure of the gorillas exhibit than a behavioral change. So I rolled with that.I thought maybe moving B to the empty  room D would be the equivalent of this structural change. C could chose whether or not she’d move to B or stay in C. I emailed L, asking if it was a fair idea and if so that if I should go ahead and ask housing if it was even possible. From there I would have had a meeting with the roomates to ask whether or not they’d like to try it.

**The Response**

L, bless their heart, ruined everything and has made these past two weeks hell for me. L had (without me knowing) received a very frustrating phone call before she went to read my email about the solution. She instead referred it to her second in command (M) to take care of. L also said some blatantly untrue and exaggerated statements of behaviors in this situation for M to address. I honestly don’t know where they came from, whether L heard them from B’s councilors or B’s parents.

M went on a bloodbath email. M specified absurd claims:

* “A’s guests playing games late into the night at loud volumes” (I only own a PC, can’t play games w/ people in person)”
* “B can’t sleep because A has company over at 2:00am and is constantly loud, that’s unfair and obnoxious”
* “the cleaning schedule includes things that may be considered either inappropriate or unfair. According to B, individuals are responsible for cleaning up regardless of who caused the mess.”. M told me later in a private meeting he also thought this meant cleaning dishes and cleaning each others rooms. None of us use silverware or flatware (all plastic for convenience) and none of us have ever entered each others rooms without the other being there.

M stated they “will not be calling out specific individuals or who said what in order to keep things civil” then proceeded to only mention me by name. The instances of where I put A and B in the above bullets were from the obvious deduction of who raised the concerns against who. I double checked to make sure it wasn’t C before being certain, she stated she’s never had any problems from either of us roommates. The most egregious and upsetting part of M’s email was when he referred to “according to various sources and observations, conflicts are being “mediated” by A. What the mediations apparently boil down to is A telling everyone what needs to be done and who is responsible for doing it. This has been interpreted as bossy, aggressive, intimidating, and dominating.” I was deeply hurt by the personal insults.

I was told by my original councilor how hard it was for my roomates to speak up. During our roommate agreement, 20-30 seconds of pure silence would pass until I’d end it by speaking up. I feel I’ve awarded every fair opportunity for my roomates to speak in person. If they don’t want to do that, we all each have each others personal numbers to communicate through text. I’ve used this system a few times, telling them about how one week I couldn’t clean because I went home sick, one time when my grandmother was coming on Saturday (both go home for the weekend but I thought I should let them know just incase), and once or twice to ask if they wanted any of the croissants my boyfriend regularly brings me. I’ve tried my hardest to make sure there’s a platform for them, but when shit hits the fan I tend to get things done. When no ones done chores by Friday, I’ll do them all. When nothing gets done, the burden