The Oberlin Review
<< Front page Commentary February 22, 2008

Glad We Had This Talk

My friends and the other people on my hall will NOT stop knocking on my door or coming in unannounced. My roommate and I are so sick of it, but we don’t want to hate them. Our room is not a living room nor a lounge. How do we make it stop?

–Anti-Socialite


One way you can be sure you will never, ever hear that absurd knocking again is by not living in your room anymore. Clearly, you just need to make new friends. Friends who don’t knock on your door. Specifically, friends with no hands, or friends that don’t live on your hall or have easy access to your door. I don’t actually want you to leave the knocking friends behind, per se. Just be somewhere else more often. Be busier. It is really hard to be irritated with friends you rarely see.

If you really do not wish to sacrifice your space, and it is yours, reclaim it. Hole up in there until your hygiene and social skills reach the nadir of your short, young life. Simply NEVER leave. Soon your friends will be so sick of seeing you in your room and hearing about your World of Warcraft guild that they will rarely wish to speak to you. Or they will be afraid to see the hirsute person you’ve become.

Admittedly, those are two extremes, though keep in mind they are completely reasonable. I am especially enamored by the former. But since you and I are probably not the same person — if we are…I need to see a psychiatrist — I’ll try to expand my horizons. You know, test the limits of my conscious mind and whatnot.

I could suggest investing in a bouncer. Surely a deep, manly (and I think that applies pretty much no matter what gender your bouncer happens to be) voice telling people to get the hell away from your door is significantly more pleasant than incessant knocking. However, an efficient bouncer won’t come cheap, so that’ll be something to consider, I feel.

You could potentially perform a Pavlovian-type experiment, except with pain instead of bells and dog food. You just get someone to put a mild electric current on the doorknob or install some barbed wire as door decorations and see if all those people just don’t exhibit a learned behavior or two after a week of that.

Okay, so those are kind of bitchy things to do, and mildly passive-aggressive, much in the same vein of posting something pretty direct on Oberlin Confessional and hoping, just hoping that your friends will get the effin’ hint. They probably won’t, and if you’re that non-confrontational about things, chances are real high that you won’t admit to being actually angry at them anyway. Oh, oh…I think we’re getting closer and closer to the root of the problem.

For some reason I think it has to do with communication. Surprise! But it is a bitchy thing to say and to bring up when it comes time to do it. More often than not, you are irrationally angry at all of your knocking friends, and it is very hard to explain this rage directly to them. Clearly, I advocate yelling, “Get the hell out,” but I feel a bit more entitled to my room and my space than others. Most people will actually get the hell out while only being mildly offended. But that does depend on who’s knocking.

One of my favorite solutions, though, is simply handing all of your friends a copy of the Review and forcing them to read my column. Not only will they be so outlandishly entertained that they won’t get mad at you, they will also continue to read my column. It’s just a win-win-win situation. Everyone goes home happy.

If you’re not into confrontation, though, and you simply don’t have the monetary funds to hire Mike Tyson (though he really should NOT be expensive), you could passive-aggressively put a list of rules somewhere in your room or on your door that people will, perchance, notice and browse through that lists your grievances and allows you to kick people out or deny them entry or really anything you want. And, if they don’t agree to the rules they can’t come in. It’s a Terms of Use agreement for your space. Who doesn’t love that?

As usual, I love you, and I most desperately wish for you to send me things. Basically, I love you. I need you, oh baby, oh baby. Dearest, I am glad we had this talk.


Drama? Whine to Glad We Had This Talk at
Julia.Chauvin@oberlin.edu


 
 
   

Powered by