Student Bashed for Relying on Roommate's Alarm and Nearly Missing Class

The internet has slammed a college student after she relied on her roommate's alarm to wake up, causing her to nearly miss class.

Published on Reddit's r/AmITheA**hole forum, a woman under the anonymous username u/Unknown_Unwanted shared her story to receive feedback from the "AITA" community. The viral video has over 10,000 upvotes and 1,000 comments.

"I wasn't expecting my post to blow up as much as it did," u/Unknown_Unwanted told Newsweek.

The original poster (OP) began her story by explaining that she lives in a college dorm with her roommate. Their rooms are adjacent to one another and are separated by thin walls so it's easy to hear each other. She wrote that her first class is at 9 a.m. on Mondays but on this particular day, she woke up early. She checked her email and found out her professor canceled class due to illness, so she decided to go back to sleep.

She woke up around 9:30 a.m. to her roommate making noise as she was rushing around. The OP knew she had a class at 9 a.m. so she was running late. When she went out to find out the reason her roommate was still there, she scowled at her and angrily asked her alarm didn't go off. She explained what happened and the roommate said "thanks to her" she was going to be late for her class.

"Apparently she relies on my alarm going off in the morning rather than setting one herself," the OP wrote, "I had no idea that was the case and still don't really understand why she doesn't have her own alarm set.

"I tried to apologize but she was too preoccupied and seemed to be ignoring me. After a few minutes she was out the door and since then I've been sitting in bed wondering if I'm really the a**hole here or if she's only got herself to blame," she concluded.

She also provided an update to Newsweek, "After my roommate came back later today she cooled off a lot and apologized. She said it was wrong of her to blame me when she should have been setting her own alarm all along. She also assured me that she would set her own alarm in the future. We hugged it out and it all ended well. No bad blood to be had."

Newsweek has published several articles regarding college roommates including how the internet was torn over a Redditor who asked for a new roommate after their embarrassing secret was revealed, a man pranked with a fake job interview by his roommates and a story about a woman who slept in her own bed after her roommates put their drunk friend there.

How to handle conflicts between you and your roommate

Do you find yourself in a similar situation? According to sparkadmissions.com, here are a few tips on handling conflicts between you and your roommate:

• Schedule a time to sit down and have an honest and open discussion.
• Find a creative way to confront your roommate about the problem.
• Use the word "I" instead of "you" to avoid accusations.
• With bigger conflicts, it might be best to get help from a dorm employee.
• Instead of making arguments about the little things, choose your battles carefully.
• Agree to disagree on things.

Redditor response

"'I tried to apologise' NO!! At 20, she can set her own alarm. There was no communication from her she relied on your alarm. She wanted to blame someone other than herself for something 100% HER fault. [Not the a**hole]," u/RationallySkeptic said, receiving the top comment of over 14,000 upvotes.

"[Not the a**hole]. You're not responsible for making sure she gets up in the morning. Hope she comes back in a better mood and apologizes," u/ElKristy wrote.

U/FloppyEaredDog pointed out, "[You're the a**hole] to yourself for apologising when you did nothing wrong. It just gives people the message that you're an easy target to abuse. The fact that you're even debating if you're an a**hole shows you need to work on your assertiveness and esteem. None of this is a criticism, I know this from my own negative experiences. Your roommate is ridiculous and entitled. [Not the a**hole]."

"Your roommate just learned a valuable lesson about becoming an adult. Sad to say that, based on her comments, it seems like the journey is going to be a bumpy ride for her. [Not the a**hole]," u/KingCharlesIsASchlub commented.

Update 9/20/2022 at 4:00 p.m. ET: The article was updated with a comment from the original poster.