I’m (M19) a college student living in a single-room dorm with my roommate (M21). We get along fine but the last couple of months I’ve been having trouble sleeping because of some of his behavior.
For context, most nights he’s gone until around 3 in the morning, and sometimes he wakes me up when he comes back when the door closes. I am aware that there is nothing I can do about the door, and it isn’t my place to keep him from doing whatever he’s doing.
However, when he comes back (or around midnight when he doesn’t go out), he listens to music in his bed, around 10 feet away from mine. His choice of genre includes incredibly sharp notes (I think it’s trap), which wakes me up more often than not. Usually he does this until around 4:30 am before shutting it off, at which point I can fall back asleep.
I want to be an understanding roommate: I know that he has just as much of a claim to exist comfortably in the room as I do, and I can mitigate the sound by listening to white noise through my headphones, and there’s also unknown factors: I’m on my phone when he does this to pass the time because I can’t sleep, which might send signals that it’s fine to do. I might be doing things that annoy him and it’s a passive-aggressive way of getting back at me. So I don’t know if it would be right to ask him to turn off the music at around 2:00 am.
So I ask: WIBTA if I asked him to turn off his music?
NTA. If you want to listen to music when your roommate is sleeping, you wear headphones. That’s basic dorm etiquette and common courtesy.
Start playing music when you get up…”oh, should we make some boundaries?”
*I know that he has just as much of a claim to exist comfortably in the room as I do,*
Agreed. But “existing comfortably” means doing reasonable things at reasonable times of the day.
Playing music at 2 or 3am, without wearing headphones, ten feet away from where another person is sleeping, is not a reasonable thing to do. It’s inconsiderate.
Tell him to wear headphones or switch it off.
YWNBTA.
NTA Honestly its nuts he’s playing music at 2AM when most folks would be sleeping.
Tell him to invest in some headphones and if its a college dorm, im sure if it doesn’t resolve itself you could report the roommate, maybe you could request a room change
What an asshole. People can be so inconsiderate and oblivious to common decency. Ask him to not play music when you’re asleep. If he’s a good person he’ll be cool. If he really is an asshole and not just oblivious then you have a problem. Sucks that you even have to deal with it.
NTA “Hey man! Can you get some earbuds to listen to your music? I get that you might need music to fall asleep but it’s waking me up because I’m kind of a light sleeper.”
https://a.co/d/fDSWds2
This is also super cool, my Father in Law uses this when he needs white noise to sleep. Unless he’s a total mooch, this shouldn’t be unaffordable for him if he can stay out partying all the time lol. There’s no way a dude is coming home sober and thinking it’s a good idea to play music at 4 a.m. while his roommate is trying to sleep.
Some people aren’t raised though, just allowed to age.
NTA.
Pretty sure most dorms have quiet hours after 9 or 10.
Insist on following that.
Why isn’t he wearing headphones? Have you asked him?
NTA. Headphones exist.
Oh gosh – NTA? What normal human would think playing anything on speaker is okay at 3am when roommate is sleeping? Hello – headphones! That is the purpose of them. No, NTA. Your roommate is. Never in my wildest dreams would I have played anything without headphones if my roommate was sleeping,let alone at 3 a.m.
NTA, but just tell him it’s interrupting your sleep and to please use headphones if he’s going to be listening to music at night.
Or, choose to wear your headphones (or earplugs or whatever) so you can sleep.
NTA. He’s T-A for not being considerate.