Roommate situations can be tricky, especially when the two (or more) people did not know each other before moving in. College is one of the times when it can be a little easier than others, because everyone is in the same boat – but not always.

OP did the roommate lottery her freshman year and says things were going ok until one night, when she awoke to screams at 1 in the morning – after she had told her roommate she needed good sleep due to a morning midterm.

I’m a college freshman and I opted to go for a random roommate. I was matched with this girl Donna, and so far we’ve gotten along pretty well. Donna has a boyfriend, Malcolm, who she’s constantly on the phone with from the time she wakes up until the time she goes to sleep.

A few weeks ago, I wanted to go to sleep early since I had an 8 AM midterm the next day. I told Donna this in advance and she said she’d be quiet. I fell asleep at about 9:30.

She leapt up and ran to her roommate, who told her she’d just been dumped by her long-term boyfriend.

However, at around 1 am, I woke up to the sound of Donna scream-crying—literal screaming, like someone had just died. I immediately got out of bed and went over to her and asked her what was wrong, thinking something horrible had just happened.

It took me a little bit to get it out of her, but she managed to tell me that Malcolm had just broken up with her over text.

OP tried her best to comfort the other girl and was not unsympathetic to her struggle.

I felt awful for her (no one deserves that) and spent a while trying to comfort her, but she wouldn’t calm down at all.

She just kept sobbing and sobbing very loudly, which is very understandable since it was my understanding that they had been together for a while.

That said, after an hour and a half with no halt to the loud upset, OP felt she had to ask the roommate to leave until she could calm down. She needed to sleep.

Here’s where I might be the asshole though: eventually, it started to get closer to 2:30 AM and Donna still wasn’t calming down. But I needed my sleep since I had a midterm in 5 hours, so I suggested we both just go to sleep and revisit it later. She just looked at me like I was insane and asked if I really expected her to sleep. And then kept crying. I knew it was unlikely she’d calm down any time soon, so I very gently asked her if she could leave the room until she was able to calm down a bit so I could sleep.

Again, Donna just looked at me like I was crazy and didn’t say anything, just kept crying. I repeated myself (again, being as nice as possible) that she could go to the bathroom or the laundry room to compose herself and come back when she was ready.

The girl eventually did leave but hasn’t said much to OP since, so she’s wondering whether or not she could have handled it differently.

Finally, she just got up without looking at me and stomped out (still crying) and I just went back to sleep. When I woke up for my midterm, she was back in her bed and sleeping, but since then she’s hardly said a word to me.

To note, I couldn’t go to a friend’s dorm to spend the night since a) most of my friends live in dorms that are farther away and I don’t want to walk by myself in the city at night and b) I wouldn’t wanna bother them on such short notice.

However, I still feel terrible about what happened since she was going through a lot, and I’d really appreciate outside perspectives.

Answers like that are what Reddit is here for!

The top comment says that OP gave her plenty of time to calm down before asking her to leave.

This person agrees that the roommate could have taken some pains to mitigate the noise on her own.

More than one person thought the length of the extreme grief felt performative.

This person says there’s a name for what happened, actually.

Most everyone was sympathetic to OP’s plight.

This OP was far, far more understanding than I think I would have been.

I’d have said “sorry that sucks” a few times and then made it clear it was time for sleeps.