>New lease signed. New tenant for my old room found. Deposit recovered today at the bank after a complicated procedure. Hence, what was more difficult has passed. It is time to say “Good bye” and face with a smile a new beginning. Fingers crossed.
Compared to the previous wonderful flat-sharing experiences, the collocation this year was extremely challenging. It required a lot of management skills and taught me a lot about people who are not always what they seem to be. Outdoor some of us can be lovely, fantastic, friendly, trust-worthy and energetic. Indoor the same people can be mean, greedy, lacking of respect, tyrannical, sometimes dishonest or simply ignorant. To deal with these kinds of attitude and behavior changes is really tricky, especially when the person in cause used to be a so-called friend or at least acquaintance. It is strange how sometimes you manage to get a long in a collocation with a person that you hadn’t previously met/known, than with somebody with whom you spent nice time in the past or you helped, hence you knew before.
I learnt that we can NOT be loved by everyone (it is impossible) and that in order to avoid a conflict, it is better to face it from the beginning, hence generate it and solve it, at least when it is still not very serious.
Small misunderstandings can create HUGE conflicts that can degenerate easily in intense animosity, to put it simpler – HATE. So better NOT BE TOO NICE at the beginning in order to avoid extremely hostile conflicts at the end. Flexibility and Diplomacy are also very important, as conflicts will always appear, but only with flexibility and diplomacy these can be solved.
All in all, collocation can be wonderful as long as you are surrounded of people who understand what collocation is about; people who know the notion of respect you and who can accept that the responsibilities are to be shared also, together with the flat.
Gabriela D. Spencer 