I recently spent an afternoon clicking through the online archives of The Guardian series called “You Be the Judge: your domestic arguments solved by Guardian readers.”

Each week’s column presents a pair of people in some sort of conflict, with each person giving a firsthand account and explaining their side of the story. Readers then get the opportunity, via an online poll, to weigh in on which person they believe has the stronger argument. Results of the online votes are tallied and then published at the end of the next week’s column.

I found the series to be an interesting twist on the classic newspaper advice column. Instead of one person writing in to ask for advice, multiple people present their side of a dispute. And instead of one person (say, Ann Landers) offering guidance, the advice is crowdsourced.

Most of the issues involved family members or romantic partners, but the third most common were between housemates—or “flatmates,” as The Guardian, being a British publication, calls people who share a home.

I also enjoyed scrolling through hundreds of reader comments. What prompted these readers to feel strongly enough to weigh in, and how did their own past experience affect their view of the situation?

From my years of living in shared housing, I know how many people, ways of living, and viewpoints can co-exist under one roof.

They range from differences on cleanliness—such as using separate hand towels and dish cloths,

to opinions about the proper place to remove one’s shoes (whether in the entryway or wherever the heck you want),

to the different ways of doing everyday things like brushing your teeth.

Conflicts can be nuanced.

I’ll admit I was pulled in by the headlines. Why is something as seemingly inconsequential as how the spice rack is organized such a big issue?

What would compel a housemate to take household appliances on a trip with him? Packing a blender in your suitcase? That sounds absurd! Turns out it’s a case of different expectations, the person who paid for the appliance thinks he owns it, the person who uses the appliance in the kitchen thinks it’s common property – especially as the person is coming back to the flat. 87% of voters thought the appliance stays in the kitchen.

Reading the firsthand accounts from each party helped illuminate why such seemingly simple issues could become a hotly debated source of conflict. One situation, two people who have come to completely different conclusions.

 

Is conflict inevitable in small spaces?

I don’t think so. Especially if you choose whom you live with carefully, and make sure that your ways of living are compatible.

What is inevitable, however, is friction.

I hear this word used a lot nowadays, and not just when it comes to physics and “a contact force that resists the sliding or rolling of one solid object or surface over another.”

When we apply this idea to interactions between human beings, it means that we are all individuals, moving through and viewing the world in unique and different ways. Communicating and interacting with other people will always take effort–more effort than interacting with a personal device like a cellphone or iPad, which is designed to be as easy and effortless to use as possible. Our needs and preferences are in constant negotiation with other people’s, and that is especially true when we live together.

Sharing housing successfully doesn’t require eliminating differences. It just means learning to live with a certain amount of friction.

You and your home-mates will do things differently.

That is just a fact! Even people with very similar lifestyles have different habits, preferences and routines. Living with another person often will affect and slightly alter the way you go about your everyday life.

This doesn’t necessarily mean compromising on everything. Sometimes it just means finding ways to maintain separate but overlapping routines. For example, instead of trying to coordinate cooking meals and grocery shopping, maybe two housemates both do their own shopping and meal preparation, but still sit down at the same table to socialize while eating their respective meals.

Change your response, not your housemate

Maybe your housemate has a tendency to leave cabinet doors open, or often forgets to put their shoes away–it’s up to you to decide how important those behaviors are, and how much they impact your daily life.

Over the years I’ve adopted a personal philosophy of simply (to continue with this example) closing the cabinet door or moving the pair of shoes if it’s in my way. Even if I find the so-called ‘out of place’ items mildly irritating, it ultimately does not affect me for more than a few seconds.

Of course, that doesn’t mean ignoring a behavior that genuinely affects your ability to live comfortably in your home. But there is a difference between a big issue that needs to change and something that is simply different from the way that you would do it.

Sometimes, the easiest thing to do is to change your own response rather than try and change the behavior of the other person.

When is a conflict too difficult to resolve?

I only read one “You Be the Judge” issue that seemed like a truly incompatible lifestyle difference, more than just a minor disagreement: one housemate loved to burn strong incense every day, while the other couldn’t tolerate the smell.

It seemed to me, in this situation that one or the other should move out. And if these housemates has used our selection process they would have discovered this fundamental difference before they agreed to live together. Asking the right questions would have made all the difference.

Living Together means living with difference.

Negotiating with and relating to other human beings is unavoidable, both in shared housing and everyday life. We get to decide for ourselves what makes us happiest, which fellow humans we want to have in our lives and our homes, and which small issues are worth raising and attempting to change–and which ones are better left alone.

That may be part of why I found “You Be the Judge” so interesting. Reading about other people’s conflicts can be instructive to how we deal with our own. It can make us reconsider our assumptions and feel less alone in our frustrations. It’s also just entertaining to read about a housemate taking the kitchen appliances on vacation.

As for being human, there is perhaps one final thing worth remembering: “judge not, lest ye be judged.”