Passing People 101

This toy monkey from my son's babyhood

went to college with him (for  fun) and

witnessed HIS share of challenging

roommates!

Most college students take a life-skills course for which they get no academic credit.  It’s called Roommate 101 (in life, People 101). I repeated it several times. My freshman year, I had four roommates in three quarters.

#1: “Nicki Tene”—who welcomed me with smoke curling from her cigarette. (This was the ‘60s, when students could smoke in their rooms.) As an asthmatic, I’d checked “no smoking” in my roommate profile. Oops.  The dorm mother changed me to a tinier room around the corner with:

#2: “Imin Luv”--who, when not in class, was with her boyfriend until curfew. Then she slept in until her 10 a.m. class, while I (who had 8 a.m. classes) had to dress by flashlight so I wouldn’t disturb her. She dropped out to marry him at the end of the quarter.

#3: “Freida To-Be Freed”—who was counting the days to her 18^th birthday for off-campus freedom.  No more dorm life for her after this quarter.

#4: “Patchwork Patty”—who, like me, needed a roommate. No drama, no sparks, we got along.

My second “dorm year,” my roomie was a Star Trek fan who kept a Trek scrapbook and didn’t miss a Trek program on the dorm TV. A loner, too. I decided for “potluck roommate” the next two years and both became friends who wrote for a while after college. Based on that, despite a rough start, I’d say I passed “People 101” in the college dorm setting.

I was taken back to those challenging-people times recently while reading Safe People, a book about relational security by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend. The book is subtitled, “How to find relationships that are good for you and avoid those that aren’t.” It’s for people who want improve interpersonal skills and for those needing to break free of “unsafe” behavioral habits. The authors point out that those who commit to behavioral change programs (such as the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous) find success because they want to work through their problems and develop good character. “Unsafe people,” however, resist character transformation. They:

*Resist admitting their relationship issues, think they don’t need help, and aren’t open to confrontation from others.

*Don’t confess when they’ve wronged others.

*Don’t forgive people who hurt them.

*Don’t show empathy to others.

*Don’t take responsibility for their lives.

*Don’t submit their life and will to God, and don’t “hunger and thirst after righteousness” (Matt. 5:6).*

Or, said another way, by shutting off awareness of their own problems and God’s resources for transformation, they act out of their own unconscious hurts, and then hurt others. They’re “unsafe,” then wonder why people avoid them.

By the way, Roommate 101 wasn’t a one-time course for me. In the dozen years between my undergraduate degree and marriage at 34, as life took me to four different major cities for mission service, work and graduate school, I had 21 different random roommates. I met some wonderful people—and some challenging (“unsafe”) ones who caused me to keep my thumb in Hebrews 12:14 (NLT): “Try to live in peace with everyone, and seek to live a clean and holy life.”

I still run into “unsafe” people in life’s daily challenges. When they are hurtful to me, I try to see them as people for whom Christ died. They won’t be “safe” until they’re safe and trusting in the arms of Jesus.  That’s worth praying for.

*Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend, Safe People (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), pp.34-35.