So I have been a long time lurker of these message boards but I never really felt a reason to post until now.
I recently transferred to university and decided to live on campus to “get the college experience” as it were, however I wound up with a rather interesting character for a roommate; he is a very fundamentalist Christian (not that that alone is a problem) but more than that he seems to genuinely believe that Christians are being oppressed when they are criticized for blatantly attacking other groups. Most notably he is of the belief that women will always be wrong when arguing with men because the Bible indicates (apparently) that men are and should be dominant over women in all matters. He also asserts that due to the low church attendance in the town that everyone here must be devil worshipping heathens and he must be extra evangelical to make up for this. For example the university held a day of tolerance for LGBT students where they were encouraged to “come out” and be themselves and if course my roommate hears of this and decides to wear an anti-gay shirt and hold a march with a Christian club on campus carrying anti-gay signs and banners á la WBC.
The guy does have a pretty messed up past and it seems like his faith has gotten him through some pretty rough times but it troubles me to no end the constant stream of intolerance and outright hate I hear just by being around the guy so much. For the sake of civility and pragmatism I have tried to be as non confrontational with him as much as I can, and I can for the most part pass myself off as Lutheran to avoid being targeted myself (technically I am an apostate for which he holds the biblical punishment as necessary). I really just felt the need to get this off my chest and this seemed like the safest place to do so.
If I were in your place, I would certainly make a very strongly worded request for a change of roommate due to the oppressive atmosphere of hate and the irreconcilable clash of ideologies.
Oh, and let me apparently be the first to welcome you to SDMB. Good luck with this, it would drive me right out of the dorm.
Roddy
Thanks for the welcome. Unfortunately it is late enough in the semester that a room change is extremely unlikely as the campus is overcrowded as it is and the craziness didn’t start for a month or so after the room swap window closed. But I am definitely going to find other accommodations for my future semesters here.
I’m really wondering what this means–does he believe in some kind of “shunning” or something (that he must separate himself from you and have nothing to do with you)? In that case I see an out if he becomes too annoying.
Or are we talking death by stoning here or something like that?
We’re talking death by stoning type stuff, I thought of the shunning out already but given some of the things he’s said in regards to seeing a woman with an anti-Christian slogan on her shirt and the mentioning of stoning in said context ruled that out.
I do have one of those fancy electric Sith Holocrons from a few years back, that might be a start… Though the idea really is to survive until the end of December, not antagonize him.
Yipes! I don’t know what I would do. I got lucky with my college roommates and we all got along well enough, but I still ended up with a single for the last two years. (screw living off campus when I have a room of my own and someone else to cook and clean the bathroom, I would be on my own soon enough after)
It would be really tempting to put up questionable decorating items, and I don’t know how I could possibly not question everything that came out of this guy’s mouth. The only thing that could keep my mouth shut would be fear of him killing me in my sleep. Is that something you’re concerned with? I think I would still give changing rooms a shot.
I think as long as I can keep up the façade things will be fine but it is definitely hard to keep quite about his bigotry and that was part of the impetus towards making this post. As far as the fearing him bit, he has enough health problems that I pity him more than fear him. That said I would rather end the semester with an acquaintance rather than an enemy so the provocative décor isn’t something I’d do. Unfortunately as I mentioned earlier I missed the window to transfer to another room but I have spoken to the residence hall assistants about it and as of now I would probably have to find someplace off campus which would most likely be doable if it gets bad enough.
In my experience things always open up for the second semester as there are fewer incoming students and some will have left. Of course, your place of higher learning may vary. In any case, feel free to vent here and think of it this way: Once you’re able to move out, you’ll have stories to tell for the rest of your life. For instance, I once roomed with a guy for a while in the summer who I was about ready to kill after a week. He was one of those people who would set his alarm fairly early (6 AM), which I was fine with. However, he’d then hit the snooze button every 9 minutes for the next hour, which was infinitely more annoying than either him getting up at 6 or just setting it for 7 in the first place.
Yeah, I’m certainly moving out next semester, I have some friends from back home who are coming up this Spring so I’m fairly confident next semester will be much more fun and less stressful. I do think the stories will be interesting when all is said and done, the real shame though is that it seems like if you are a very pious male he would be a reasonable guy to hang around with.
The real shame though is he is serious about his charity work. He has done a lot of cancer research fundraisers and such. So it seems like he does take the positive sides of his dogma along with the bad.
Why should you move out? He is the one harassing you, so record /write down every single incident until you think you’ve got enough, take it to The Powers That Be, and get his ass kicked out of there.
