University disappointment

[SnowCrab]

I am struggling to deal with the cruelty of young adults. My fresher daughter’s roommates have all sorted out private housing for next year and not included her in plans. The only one out of a floor of 14/15 kids. I don’t think it was malicious just general privilege / obliviousness. My sweet caring daughter is just very sad and getting on with it.. I am full of rage. I want everyone to know about these selfish kids. I want their parents to know they brought up cruel children. Clearly that won’t happen. I sit here wanting them to now fail in life for the choice they made here (over reaction? Maybe). I am sure time will help. Has anyone else had this happen. How do I deal with this rage and move on?

Seriously you are coming across as unhinged.

Her “roommates” don’t have to live with her next year. Planning not to do so isn’t selfish or uncaring.

She needs to be proactive and sort out accomodation. TBH I think committing to property for next academic year now is madness. Friendship groups change so much.

Hey look- I was in this position and my mum would have said the same thing, I made up excuses because she would have also been frothing on MN

truth was- I was fine, but a bit of a weirdo and in my own world, too focused on my boyfriend at the time and my part time job

I’d go out with them on a Wednesday because we were all freshers and it was a free for all and they were quite nice people but they weren’t my mates and I made no effort to get close to them.

these aren’t ’cruel’ children. They just aren’t your DD’s close mates. And that’s fine.

i would hide your rage, pick her back up, find a nice private hall and just try and encourage her having meaningful friendships.

I think it's really hard that the demand for accommodation is so intense that people need to decide for next year when they've barely got to know the people they're with this year.

It's not really fair to blame the others though, maybe you're daughter is just not as close to them as others are.

If she asked and they were all rude to her, if she had a plan with them and they let her down that’s cruelty.

Nobody is owed a friendship or a room in a shared house. If 15mother adults don’t think they want to share with her, she is the common denominator.

It's hard when your child is excluded. I feel for you and her. Can she see if anyone on her course is looking for someone? Something will come up but I know that's not the point. Lots of kids go through accommodation dramas at uni. It's good that your dd is being phlegmatic about it. Hope she finds a nice place to live next year. The rage will die down (I find 3 days tends to be the dropping off point)

My DD has similar. Honestly you don't want your lovely child to live with absolute horrors, they're doing her a favor in the long term.

My DD has 1 friend who she wants to live with who has another friend. That makes 3 girls. These two girls are refusing to share with any boys, even quiet ones. Its limiting and shows total inflexibility.

I am encouraging my DD to live in a student hall run independently next year, so by the time she is in the position to think about 3rd yr accommodation, she will know people a lot better than just after 5-6 wks.

Try not to be angry.

Who you live with in first year is random, she has time to decide who she wants to live with in second year. She might have much better friends on her course / any sports etc she does and be able to find likeminded housemates that way instead.

except they don't have time any more. We had time, 20-30 yrs ago, but these days its a scrum and it starts now.

Had she informally arranged with some of then they'd be living together next year, or had she just not discussed it with anyone until too late?

I think the reality is if the comparison is the entire floor, you can't expect people to have checked no one was excluded (unless you're saying there's one massive house next year and she's the only one excluded) because they'll have gotten together in smaller groups and it won't have been obvious to anyone and not everyone on the floor will normally share with other people on the floor. If you were talking about a group of 5 friends, with one excluded, that would be different.

It's horrible it's worked out this way for her but it's not her flatmates' fault unless there's more to the story and you shouldn't be raging at them. It sounds like she wasn't proactive enough and has been caught out. I'm not saying you should be raging at her, but this is just how things work out sometimes and raging at people who don't seem to have done anything wrong isn't going to help you or her.

But at the same time if you wait it out rooms always become available in summer term as people drop out/ fall out/ decide to commute/ decide to share with a bf/gf. Can save yourself the leg work and stress so long as you’re someone who is fairly flexible/ easy going about who you live with.

Son had toxic set of flatmates last year. He was ill and has minor disability. Some young people are very selfish and somehow haven't got the memo re inclusivity and have no experience of workplaces and schools where decent behaviour is required. I feel your pain OP

It’s hard they have to organise accommodation so quickly these days. But my DD ended up living with friends she made through clubs/societies/interest groups rather than who she was initially living with in halls. They got on and were nice enough, but she found her tribe more through shared interest groups and is much happier with her house share this year.

My dd made friends in first year with one group of students , had a great first few months and then one of the girls just kept excluding her from nights out, group chats and university working groups. Dd had a rough few months and decided to drop that friendship group and find new friends, I’m so glad she has, they are kind, caring, loyal and are truly her best friends now. That nasty girl did my dd a favour and made her see that she didn’t need people like that in her life.

bizarrelly that girl has continued to introduce others to the group and exclude original girls who were in it so she has a history of it.

your dd will get over it and hopefully find other friends too.

It's called frontal lobe development. It hasn't fully happened yet.

Your daughter will not be close friends with the other 14/15 students on her floor.
They will not all be friends with each other either.
They will also not all be living in the same house, so it's quite possible that they all thought she was in a group with other people

It's up to her to talk to other people to sort out accommodation for next year.
The university will likely organise sessions to help people find housemates, if she is struggling.

You should also be aware that lots of people fall out with house share plans made so early - so she is safe from that by leaving it a bit later.

It really depends where they're based. I know there are a few cities where accommodation is very limited, but most still have accommodation available after Christmas, and some still have accommodation available right up until the start of the new academic year (I know Norwich is like that).
In any case, there will be vacancies opening up later in the year when those that rushed into forming groups with people they'd known for 5 minutes realise that perhaps it wasn't such a good idea for whatever reason and want to swap out.

That's not cruelty. Calm down.

It took my DS quite a long while to find people he wanted to live with (& who wanted to live with him!!), they were friends from societies in the end, not people he randomly lived with in yr 1.

People live with all sorts of people - 1st year flatmates, sports team buddies, course mates, work pals, old school chums, society friends, back in halls with randomers. Nobody is under obligation to be inclusive with their choice of who they want to share with. Ds1 was too passive and shy - ended up not with who he wanted - it was too bad, he had to make other plans. Dc2 really didn’t like one of her 1st year flatmates and didn’t want to share in a group she was in , loved her coursemates but they were looking at places out of her budget, had good work friends but a year above and already settled, ended up approaching someone she liked in a different flat and they made a group with a few of others. Only two from her original group of 14. How many of the 14 had she asked? Or is it only the others who are supposed to do the reaching out?

Chances are that it wasn’t a matter of all the other 14 or 15 people deliberately excluding your daughter and more a matter of them just ending up in groups with their closest friends. It’s really unfortunate but I wouldn’t be jumping to the conclusion that it’s because they are awful nasty people.

OP I wouldn’t worry too much.

Firstly it’s early November and there is plenty of time. Yes lots of ppl sort accommodation now but equally so many DC seem to rush to find a place and thus don’t look beyond first-year hallmates – sometimes discovering next summer that they don’t get on that well. There will be places to find in Nov and Dec.
Plus if they don’t want to include her (and they are not obliged to do so) then I am sure she won’t enjoy living with them.

I wouldn’t try to analyse why not – just encourage her to find some actual friends. Can she stay in halls – that’s often a great option as unis want people to be second year ambassadors and guides for freshers.

Or can she get together with people on her course, or people met through hobbies? DS2 is doing an accidental fifth year (long story) and had to sort accommodation in about February; he has fallen on his feet with a really nice bunch of lads, only one of whom he knew before (from his sports team) in a great house.

Older adults can be just as petty and exclusive as younger ones. Just think of the endless threads about school gate mum cliques/MiL conflict/ golden children.

I realise that you are upset for your DD, it is a really difficult time to be a parent: freshers worry, worry about living away, worry about friendships etc. However, I think you are being unreasonable to call a bunch of 18 year olds cruel in this situation.

If she’s asked them and they’ve been unpleasant, fair enough, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. They’ve just sorted themselves out early, plenty of others will still be doing the same giving her the chance to go in with others. I’d suggest she chats to people on her course to see if anyone is looking for additional housemates.

I lived with corridors mates in year 2 and it was disastrous. Year 3 was with course mates and much more successful. People in your halls are just there by luck, people on your course have at least some common ground.

That's really tough for your daughter, it's never nice to be left out and she may be panicking given the pressure to get things sorted now. Remember that she will barely know these people yet and she will make much better uni friends over the full three years.

My son was left without a house share group though four different reasons - he was trying to get a place where he and his girlfriend could live together (hare brained scheme, uni accommodation is not set up for couples- they've since split up anyway) and by the time he realised he couldn't everyone else was sorted. He went into private halls and has really liked it and decided to stay for his final year. It suits us too as we didn't have to guarantee the rent of a whole group, just his. So maybe that's an option.

Also some people drop out of uni in the first year so there will be lots of groups desperately advertising for a replacement student to join them. Hopefully some of those will be people she knows and likes.

While there is a scrum now there will still be houses available and people looking for housemates next term.

Happened to DD. November is very early, but it still hurt. She mentioned it casually after a sports match, and discovered a couple were in the same position, so they decided to look together. A fourth joined them and the next year was problem free. Indeed a decade later one is still a good friend. The large group from the first year apparently had a massive falling out with all sorts of complications.

She should quietly ask around her course or any societies she has joined. First friendships based on proximity often do not last. Shared interest, whether through your course or societies you choose to join are a better way of finding your tribe.

Another tip is that they stayed right to the end of term and a few properties came up when others had left or were to busy partying to look.