Horror Over Woman's Outburst to Roommate Triggered by Language Barrier

A college student has been criticized by Reddit for telling her roommate that "she's boring and has to fake her personality."

The Redditor, 19, explains that she is in her first year of college and is living with Katie, 19. The roommate speaks English, German, and Spanish, "and she makes it her whole personality."

The poster explains that she feels left out when her roommate listens to music or watches films in other languages. "Her friends all speak one of the languages she does and whenever I hear them, I can't join the conversation because they mixing everything so I'm left out of their convo," the Reddit user writes.

Linda Whiteside, LPPC, lead clinical counselor of NuView Treatment Center in Los Angeles, told Newsweek her opinion of this story.

"From what I understand, I think the person who posted her query seems to be showing a bit of jealousy towards her roommate," Whiteside said.

"Jealousy often bubbles under the surface of our subconscious, manifesting in actions such as hating on a particular person's interests or nit-picking activities that they find 'odd' or 'too different' from their own standards.

"As roommates, they should have established a common ground to be able to live together, but it seems that their relationship wasn't very good from the start, judging from how the original poster talks about her roommate," Whiteside added.

"Another driver of the potential jealousy that the original poster is showing is that she might have a poor self-image and is not as social as her roommate, who has more friends."

Reddit users criticized the student, with one commenting, "This part sounds a bit xenophobic to me."

On learning that her roommate is adding Portuguese to her skills, the poster wrote: "I told her she has to let it go, that she needs to develop her personality because speaking a language isn't a personality trait and she's just boring.

"She got really annoyed with me and told me [...] to stop eavesdropping on her convos. I told her she's boring and has to fake her personality. Now, she's not speaking to me."

The Drunk Scientist commented: "Jealousy is not a personality either," while another user wrote, "100% agree. Roommates aren't automatic friends. [The original poster] sounds like she's projecting her insecurities about lack of personality..."

One Reddit user posted, "Sounds like to me [the poster] might have a bit of a control issue as well. One can set boundaries, but you don't get to tell others what they can and cannot do."

Newsweek has reached out to Responsible-Wind9184 for comment.

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