Dorm Room Study

My investigation was and observation of two college roommates who started out as best friends, but ended as bitter acquaintances. They soon found out how over time, two good friends find living together a bigger task than they had ever imagined. I was informed of their quarrels from both parties since I was a mutual friend, and I was a witness to what they had said since I was a frequent visitor. In the end, they were not enemies, but unfriendly, bitter, acquaintances.

The two subjects of investigation in this case were Vanessa and Valerie, both friends of mine and both roommates here at UIC. From the beginning, there was an obvious difference…Vanessa was Hispanic and Valerie was African-American. Not that there race difference was a problem, but it was the root of their lifestyle and culture differences. Vanessa came from Hoffman Estates, a majority white, middle to upper class neighborhood and Valerie came from the Westside of Chicago, a predominantly black, lower class neighborhood. Valerie was from a single mother home, being the only child and Vanessa was from a home with both parents and two younger siblings. In terms of their individual lifestyles, the girls were very different in terms of daily lifestyles with such aspects as religion, music, habits or hobbies, and foods. This became a big problem as the school year progressed and was the root of the many disputes that occurred between them.

I met both girls at the same time; they were on my floor of the residence hall. Myself, being a friendly neighbor, went over and introduced myself to them and became a mutual friend who would stop in from time to time and occasional study sessions were held in each others rooms. Sometimes I would be with both or sometimes with one of the two. As school went on, they both made their own set of friends and grew distant. I sort of became the “middle man” in the friendship since I was in both of their daily lives. This was fine with me; I had two friends, who had two groups of friends, and two different lifestyles.

Vanessa was a more traditional girl, brought up in a Catholic, traditional, Hispanic home with both parents and younger siblings to whom she was a role model. She was a good student all through her younger years and was always involved in extracurricular activities. She was involved in team sports all through high school and her parents, family, and friends would all go watch her play. She went to a high school which was very racially integrated with many ethnic groups that made up the school population. Her father was a doctor, and mother a teacher. Vanessa received many different scholarships for her academic excellence and was an aspiring attorney who was determined to finish college easily, and quickly. She came to UIC because she loved the City life and was ready to explore her surroundings.

Valerie was a liberal, “artsy” kind of person. She was definitely different in terms of physical appearance. She was a “big, black, strong woman” as she quoted. Her home was in a poor, black neighborhood, where she was always being watched by different neighbors as her mother worked two jobs a night, every night to support her only child. Her father was non-existent since before she was born and had no intention of returning. She had no younger siblings, so she had no one to look up to or to teach to. During her school years, she was an average student who sort of just went with the flow and got average grades when she wanted to. I say “when she wanted to” because she was intelligent but also lazy at times. She was never involved in any extracurricular activities, no clubs or team sports. She was a loaner who kept to herself and liked it that way. Her high school was all black, and she was surrounded by the same ethnic group all day in school and her neighborhood. She saw what her neighborhood was like and wanted something better for herself and she figured that college was the key to getting her where she wanted to be. She was a poet, but not your average poet…a “flow-et.” To flow is to rhyme in a way where you recite lines that are in forms of rapping your words or your knowledge to express yourself in a way that could not be told, but instead flowed. Her poems were her life stories and she would flow to different people and friends and even strangers. She was very much into hip-hop music and her college experience would give her the knowledge to succeed she believed.

The problems began as small, “new roommate” problems, but eventually it continued on as daily pet peeves and then escalated to major issues. Some of the biggest problems were the daily habits, the cleanliness or lack of, and the guests or visitors. In one instance, Vanessa came to my room and says, “I cant take it anymore!” She smokes all day, cigarettes and marijuana and its not only disgusting but she is going to get us in trouble. There was an obvious issue going on, and it was one of discomfort and one of a safety hazard and a sense of fear in one of the parties involved. Another day, Valerie comes to me and tells me that Vanessa’s boyfriend is always over and there is never privacy when she gets back because he is always there. Vanessa was used to having her boyfriend over her house all the time, so she was accustomed to it here at school as well and she didn’t see it as a problem and felt that Valerie was overreacting. One day, I walked in on an argument going on about the mess in the room. The girls were going back and forth about each others things all over the floor and taking up too much space. Valerie was mad at Vanessa’s clothes all over and Vanessa was mad at Valerie’s books, and paintings and garbage all over. These were problems that I experienced firsthand on different occasions.

I used different methods to observe the root of their problems and tried to come to a way to resolve their issues with the least amount of change to their lifestyles. I didn’t interview, but I would sit down with each one when they were alone and listen to their problems as a mediator with an open mind to both sides. But like many arguments, there are two sides to the story in which the credibility of the stories become an issue. Both girls believe they are both right and don’t want to admit that either is wrong. At this point, instead of being just a listener, I become an interviewer where I take a normal conversation with them and turn it into a question and answer session where I try to get to the root of the problem. By starting out little by little, the process snowballs and gets into other discussions and it more information and true feelings are revealed. Once I heard both sides of the stories from personal interviews, I decided to put myself in the observation myself. Instead of just coming by as a guest, I decided to hang around for a longer time period to try and experience what each of the girls was telling me about. This was my form of participant observation, but it was unknown to the girls what I was doing because they were both stubborn individuals and didn’t want me to “fix” things because they felt that there couldn’t be a compromise. I would come by and observe the things that each other would complain about and I would somehow mention it, in a corrective manner as sort of a suggestion. For example, I would say, “Hey Vanessa, isn’t Pat here a lot? Doesn’t he have his homework to do and don’t you and Valerie your own studying to do? Maybe it would be easier to focus if Pat wasn’t around to distract you as much.” By doing this, I mention to her the issue, I mention Valerie as the one being distracted but to add to it I mention him being a distraction to the both of them. I did the same thing to Valerie but about her smoking habits and how it’s bad for everyone’s health and how Vanessa and I aren’t around when she smokes. I used both of their problems to come up with solutions for the both of them. This way they could see both sides of the issue instead of just one side as they usually would.

Following the attempts of different methods and observations, I decided to test out the Model of Disputes by P.H. Gulliver. I began by exploring the prehistory of the quarrel by going to the root of the problems that the girls complained about, and I did this by having normal conversations and asking them what bothered them or what they liked/disliked about each other. Next came the dispute when the feelings of both parties were expressed to each other but in form of argument and quarrels. In my participation, I applied a moot process in which I was present and I listened to both sides confront each other in my presence. At that point, the problems were out in the open and were clear. There was no more guessing or assuming going on that would cause more conflict in the future. The next step I took after all of my observation was to find a way to create a solution. I took the mediation approach, which was a familiar topic to me since I was a peer mediator in high school. I brought them both together and sat them down to explain how much easier things could be without conflict and hostility towards each other about problems that could be solved by simple mediation. They began again telling their problems, but this time I didn’t only listen but I intervened and suggested solutions and they created compromises as to what could work for the both of them. They talked it out and reached many compromises of all of their issues with each other.

From the moment the two moved in together, the girls were different…and they were still different afterwards, but now they had an understanding of each other and learned to solve disputes in a way that could prevent conflict. The observation methods I used, helped to get inside the problems and reach an empathetic feeling so I could put myself in the situation and apply the problems to myself. I came up with scenarios and compromises of my own to solve the problems and create something that could be attained, such as steps that would lead to goals to be reached in order to agree on similar solutions. The Dispute model of P.H. Gulliver was my final step in creating a process of how to get the subjects to get all of the issues out and then to later on reach a compromise. Once the models were applied, the process was a lot smoother and an agreement was able to be attained. The girls weren’t ever back to being the way they were when they first met, but now was a time where they could reach compromise by skipping the conflict step which creates disputes.

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