Each day, we encounter petty inconvieniences. People make it their mission to get in front of you, only to walk or drive slow, and blare their playlists before dawn, while we are trying to get necessary rest before eight o’clock lectures. Professors insist that points don’t matter, even though your GPA is on the line.
We absorb these inconveniences and push forward, until one day we react. We may not snap, but we exceed our normal passive responses. In the event that we react in the very manner that most people would have, we are wrong. Why? Because “communication is key.” After all, “it’s not what you say, but how you say it,” right?
Our irritation is deemed unacceptable and immature. To solve the response rather than the trigger, we are called into meetings, forced into interpersonal retraining and otherwise reprimanded, because we “didn’t effectively communicate our issues.” These triggers would be bothersome to most, but it is only when one is responsible for the trigger that responses of irritation must be explained.
In addition to despising petty and unnecessary convocation, I detest the “communication is key” mentality. Communication is not key; common sense is. There are certain things that should not have to be explained to a college-aged person.
Loud music in the wee hours in the morning, being coughed on by an adult with seeming hand-eye coordination and excessive conversation while attempting to enjoy a book are all obvious annoyances. As adults, we shouldn’t have to have pointless meetings, chores lists or retraining to figure this out.
The implication that a person is ineffective at communicating because they don’t entertain false naivety is insulting. If a person chooses not to draw out exactly what went wrong, even though this would have been irksome to the aggressor in the scenario, they are not compounding the issue.
The greatest flaw of this mentality is that it enables unwillingness to be considerate, under the guise of ignorance or inexperience, while making those inconvenienced or wronged in the situation partially accountable.
People that transgress against others, whether out of spite or a lack of consideration, should not feel that others are responsible for the ramifications of their actions or the plight that they inflict on others.
If the same people who blast their music at three in the morning with total disregard for their peers the night before an eight o’clock lecture encountered so much as a tone above a whisper after their bedtime, they would be livid.
So, the issue isn’t ignorance; rather, people want to be comfortable in their actions and avoid being singularly in the wrong.
We have four years of roommates ahead of us. In those four years, we shouldn’t have to reap the consequences of others’ botched behavior and we shouldn’t have to explain common sense to an adult.
In the future, instead of hiding behind a “lack of communication,” please act with the care and behavior you would want others to exhibit toward you. If you value your quality of sleep, relaxation, decompression and safe spaces, assume others do the same and don’t want to contend with your latest saga of mishaps.
