新視野大學(xué)英語(yǔ)讀寫(xiě)教程第四冊(cè)u(píng)nit5-b Section B Roommate Conflicts

Roommate Conflicts

Identical twins Katie and Sarah Monahan arrived at Pennsylvania's Gettysburg College last year determined to strike out on independent paths. Although the 18-year-old sisters had requested rooms in different dorms, the housing office placed them on the eighth floor of the same building, across the hall from each other. While Katie got along with her roommate, Sarah was miserable. She and her roommate silently warred over matters ranging from when the lights should be turned off to how the furniture should be arranged. Finally, they divided the room in two and gave up on oral communication, communicating primarily through short notes.

During this time, Sarah kept running across the hall to seek comfort from Katie. Before long, the two wanted to live together again. Sarah's roommate eventually agreed to move out. “From the first night we lived together again, we felt so comfortable,” says Sarah. “We felt like we were back home.”

Sarah's ability to solve her dilemma by rooming with her identical twin is unusual, but the conflict she faced is not. Despite extensive efforts by many schools to make good roommate matches, unsatisfactory outcomes are common. One roommate is always cold, while the other never wants to turn up the furnace, even though the thermometer says it's minus five outside. One person likes quiet, while the other person spends two hours a day practicing the trumpet, or turns up his sound system to the point where the whole room vibrates. One eats only organically produced vegetables and believes all living things are holy, even ants and mosquitoes, while the other likes wearing fur and enjoys cutting up frogs in biology class.

When personalities don't mix, the excitement of being away at college can quickly grow stale. Moreover, roommates can affect each other's psychological health. A recent study reports that depression in college roommates is often passed from one person to another.

Learning to tolerate a stranger's habits may teach undergraduates flexibility and the art of compromise, but the learning process is often painful. Julie Noel, a 21-year-old senior, recalls that she and her freshman year roommate didn't communicate and were uncomfortable throughout the year. “I kept playing the same disk in my CD player for a whole day once just to test her because she was so timid,” says Noel. “It took her until dinner time to finally change it.” Although they didn't saw the room in half, near year's end, the two did end up in a screaming fight. “Looking back, I wish I had talked to her more about how I was feeling,” says Noel.

Most roommate conflicts spring from such small, irritating differences rather than from grand disputes over abstract philosophical principles. “It's the specifics that tear roommates apart,” says the assistant director of residential programs at a university in Ohio.

In extreme cases, roommate conflict can lead to serious violence, as it did at Harvard last spring: One student killed her roommate before committing suicide. Many schools have started conflict resolution programs to calm tensions that otherwise can build up like a volcano preparing to explode, ultimately resulting in physical violence. Some colleges have resorted to “roommate contracts” that all new students fill out and sign after attending a seminar on roommate relations. Students detail behavioral guidelines for their room, including acceptable hours for study and sleep, a policy for use of each other's possessions and how messages will be handled. Although the contracts are not binding and will never go to a jury, copies are given to the floor's residential adviser in case conflicts later arise. “The contract gives us permission to talk about issues which students forget or are afraid to talk about,” says the director of residential programs.

Some schools try to head off feuding before it begins by using computerized matching, a process that nevertheless remains more of a guessing game than a science. Students are put together on the basis of their responses to housing form questions about smoking tolerance, preferred hours of study and sleep, and self-described tendencies toward tidiness or disorder. Parents sometimes weaken the process by taking the forms and filling in false and wishful data about their children's habits, especially on the smoking question. The matching process is also complicated by a philosophical debate among housing managers concerning the flavor of university life: “Do you put together people who are similar — or different, so they can learn about each other?” A cartoon sums up the way many students feel the process works: Surrounded by a mass of papers, a housing worker picks up two selection forms and exclaims, “Likes chess, likes football; they're perfect together!”

Alan Sussman, a second-year student, says, “I think they must have known each of our personalities and picked the opposite,” he recalls. While Sussman was neat and serious about studying, his roommate was messy and liked to party into the early hours of the morning. “I would come into the room and find him pawing through my desk, looking for postage for a letter. Another time, I arrived to find him chewing the last of a batch of chocolate chip cookies my mother had sent me. People in the hall were putting up bets as to when we were going to start slapping each other around,” he says. Against all odds, the two ended up being friends. Says Sussman: “We taught each other a lot — but I would never do it again.”

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室友沖突

同卵雙胞胎卡蒂和薩拉•莫納漢去年來(lái)到賓夕法尼亞的葛底斯堡大學(xué)，決心闖出一條獨(dú)立之路。
雖然這對(duì)18歲的姐妹曾要求住在不同的宿舍樓，但宿管處還是把她們安排在了同一棟樓的第8層，中間只隔一條過(guò)道。
卡蒂與室友相處融洽，但薩拉卻十分不快。
她因許多事情與室友暗地里不和，諸如什么時(shí)候熄燈、家具應(yīng)如何擺放等等。
最后她們將房間一分為二，彼此不再說(shuō)話(huà)，主要通過(guò)寫(xiě)便條進(jìn)行交流。

這段時(shí)間里，薩拉不斷跑到過(guò)道對(duì)面卡蒂那兒尋求慰藉。
不久兩人又想住在一起了，
而薩拉的室友最終也同意搬出。
“從重新住在一起的第一晚開(kāi)始，我就感到很舒服，”薩拉說(shuō)，
“就好像回到家里一樣。”

薩拉以和同卵雙生姐妹同住的辦法走出了她的困境，這種辦法很少見(jiàn)，但她所遇到的沖突卻并不罕見(jiàn)。
盡管許多學(xué)校已做了許多努力來(lái)為學(xué)生安排合適的室友，但結(jié)果常常不盡如人意。
一位室友總感覺(jué)冷，而另一位卻總是不想調(diào)高暖氣溫度，盡管氣溫計(jì)顯示室外溫度已達(dá)零下5度。
一個(gè)喜歡安靜，而另一個(gè)卻每天練習(xí)兩個(gè)小時(shí)的小號(hào)，或?qū)⒁繇戦_(kāi)得很大，響得連整個(gè)房間都在振動(dòng)。
一個(gè)只吃有機(jī)蔬菜產(chǎn)品，認(rèn)為所有生物都是神圣的，即使是螞蟻、蚊子也如此，而另一位卻愛(ài)穿皮草，喜歡在生物課上將青蛙開(kāi)膛破肚。

彼此性格不合時(shí)，離家上大學(xué)的那種興奮感就會(huì)立刻變得索然無(wú)味。
而且，室友會(huì)互相影響對(duì)方的心理健康。
根據(jù)最近的研究，大學(xué)生室友的憂(yōu)郁癥往往會(huì)從一個(gè)人傳給另一個(gè)人。

學(xué)會(huì)容忍陌生人的習(xí)慣可使大學(xué)生學(xué)會(huì)靈活應(yīng)變和妥協(xié)的藝術(shù)，但這往往是一個(gè)十分痛苦的過(guò)程。
21歲的朱莉•諾埃爾是大四學(xué)生。她回憶說(shuō)，她一年級(jí)時(shí)與室友無(wú)法溝通，彼此整整一年都很不自在。
“我曾從早到晚用CD機(jī)播放同一張碟，就是為了試試她，因?yàn)樗咔恿耍?rdquo;諾埃爾說(shuō)，
“直到那天晚飯時(shí)，她才終于改變了她的羞怯。”
雖然她們沒(méi)有將房間一分為二，但是到了年末，她們還是大吵一場(chǎng)分開(kāi)了。“回想起來(lái)，我真希望當(dāng)時(shí)能跟她談?wù)勎业母惺埽?rdquo;諾埃爾說(shuō)。

大多數(shù)室友間沖突的起因都是小小的令人不快的分歧，而不是抽象的哲學(xué)原則上的重大爭(zhēng)執(zhí)。
“都是具體的事情弄得室友不和，”俄亥俄州一所大學(xué)的宿舍管理處主任助理說(shuō)。

在極端的情況下，室友間的沖突可能引發(fā)嚴(yán)重的暴力事件。去年春天哈佛大學(xué)就發(fā)生了這種情況：一位學(xué)生將她的室友殺害后自殺。
許多學(xué)校都已經(jīng)啟動(dòng)了化解沖突的項(xiàng)目，以緩和緊張形勢(shì)，要不然它們就會(huì)像火山一樣蓄勢(shì)待發(fā)，最終導(dǎo)致暴力行為。
有些大學(xué)采用了“室友合同”的做法：所有新生在參加有關(guān)室友關(guān)系的討論會(huì)之后，都要填寫(xiě)簽署該合同。
學(xué)生們訂下詳細(xì)的宿舍行為準(zhǔn)則，包括可以共同接受的學(xué)習(xí)時(shí)間、睡眠時(shí)間，動(dòng)用彼此物品的原則，以及如何處理留言。
雖然合同不具有法律約束力，也永遠(yuǎn)不會(huì)訴諸法庭，但合同副本都被送到所在樓層的宿舍指導(dǎo)員處，以防日后發(fā)生沖突。
宿舍管理處主任說(shuō)：“合同允許我們處理一些同學(xué)們沒(méi)有想到或不愿談及的問(wèn)題。”

有些學(xué)校試圖通過(guò)電腦配對(duì)安排住宿，以期防止?fàn)幊嘲l(fā)生。不過(guò)這種做法更像推測(cè)游戲，并不科學(xué)。
它根據(jù)學(xué)生對(duì)住宿表格上一系列問(wèn)題的回答將他們組合在一起。這些問(wèn)題包括是否容忍抽煙，選擇什么樣的作息時(shí)間，以及對(duì)個(gè)人習(xí)慣是整潔還是凌亂的自我描述。
有時(shí)家長(zhǎng)會(huì)拿走表格，就他們孩子的習(xí)慣填入不真實(shí)的、一廂情愿的數(shù)據(jù)，特別是在吸煙問(wèn)題上，這就削弱了這種做法的效果。
此外，宿舍管理人員中關(guān)于大學(xué)生活特色的理論之爭(zhēng)也使這一安排過(guò)程復(fù)雜化。這一爭(zhēng)論圍繞的主題是：“到底是讓相似的人住在一起，還是讓不同的人住在一起，讓他們?nèi)￠L(zhǎng)補(bǔ)短呢？”
一幅漫畫(huà)道出了許多學(xué)生對(duì)這一做法的感受：面對(duì)一大堆資料，宿舍工作人員隨便拿出兩張待選的表格，叫道：“這位喜歡象棋，那位愛(ài)好足球，他們住在一起是最理想的了！”

一位二年級(jí)學(xué)生艾倫•薩斯曼回憶道：“我覺(jué)得他們肯定了解我們的性格，然后就選性格相反的（搭配）。”
薩斯曼喜歡整潔，學(xué)習(xí)認(rèn)真，而他的室友卻邋里邋遢，而且喜歡通宵聚會(huì)直至凌晨。
“我一進(jìn)房間，就看見(jiàn)他在我的桌子上到處亂翻，想找郵票去寄信。
還有一次，我回來(lái)就看到他在吃我的最后一塊巧克力曲奇餅，那是我媽媽帶給我的。
宿舍樓里的人都在打賭我們什么時(shí)候打起來(lái)，”他說(shuō)。
但是出乎人們的意料，他們卻最終成了朋友。
薩斯曼說(shuō)：“我們彼此從對(duì)方身上學(xué)到了許多東西──但我也決不想再有這樣的經(jīng)歷了。”