Living Mates and
Friends
Friends
Your roommate asks you to stop being friends with someone from your floor. It's framed as a request, not a demand. Do you have to agree?
No. A request is not an instruction. You can value your roommate and still decline their terms — and you don't owe them a justification.
Name three things that must be true in a healthy relationship, and one thing that is never okay.
Any three: trust, honesty, respect, room to disagree, time apart, being listened to. Never: hitting, name-calling, threats, or making someone choose between you and their friends.
Give an example of a promise where keeping it would actually hurt someone.
Keeping quiet about someone being harmed at home, being threatened, or being coerced. Safety outranks the promise every time.
Someone shows you an intimate photo of someone. Name three things you do, in order.
Don't share it, don't save it, and tell an adult — an RA, a dean, campus police or an anonymous line. Passing it on once makes you a distributor, not a bystander.
Name two people on this campus you could actually go to if something happened tonight.
Any two real ones: an RA, a dean, the counseling center, Student Health, a professor you trust, Title IX / Office of Civil Rights. The test is whether you'd actually walk there.
A friend says: “I'm not going to tell you what to do, but if you go to that party I won't be okay.” What is this, exactly?
Pressure wearing the costume of concern. It hands you responsibility for their feelings so the control never has to look like a demand.
Explain what consent actually requires — not the policy version, the human version.
A free yes: no pressure, no guilt, no cost to saying no, and revisit able at any point. “If you loved me” doesn't produce consent, it produces compliance.
What's the difference between a disagreement between equals and a power imbalance?
Equals can say no and walk away. Under an imbalance, one person controls something the other needs — a grade, hours, housing, a place on the team, or belonging in the group.
Your partner wants your location shared all day and your passwords “so there are no secrets.” Do you have to say yes?
No. Privacy belongs to each person. You can choose a compromise you actually want — a text when you get home —without handing over the tracker.
Your friend is in a controlling relationship and asks you not to say anything. What's your move?
Say what you see plainly — “I'm worried about you and that's not going away” — and offer to go with them to a resource. Help them keep their own decisions; don't take them over.
Your friend group has an unwritten rule: nobody dates outside the group. It started as a running joke. Where is this heading?
A joke that becomes enforceable is a control mechanism. Groups that police who you can care about are shrinking your world, not protecting it.
Why is “just say no” incomplete advice? What actually makes refusing easier?
Refusing needs words you've rehearsed, a friend who backs you, and an exit you've already planned. Skills get practised, not improvised at the moment.
Name two power imbalances that exist on a campus that almost nobody calls by that name.
Any two: advisor and student, manager and employee, RA and resident, older and newer student, the person with a car and the person without.
A group chat turns on one person. Rank these: screenshotting it, replying in the thread, going quiet, messaging the person directly.
Replying in the thread feeds it, and going quiet leaves them alone in it — those are the worst two. Screenshot for evidence, message the person, then tell an adult.
What's the difference between being a supporter and being a fixer — and why does it matter here?
A supporter listens, believes, and walks with someone to help they choose. A fixer takes the decisions away, which repeats exactly what the controlling person was doing.
Every group seems to end up with one person cast as “the problem.” Why does that role keep appearing, and who does it serve?
Groups manage their own discomfort by pushing it onto one member. It protects everybody else's comfort and costs one real person their standing.
Someone says: “I only acted like that because I was jealous — that's how you know I love you.” What's wrong with the sentence?
Jealousy is not proof of love, and love is not a licence to control. Feeling jealous is human; using it as a claim on someone's behaviour is not.
A senior in your major offers to help you, then expects it repaid — on their terms. Where did this go wrong?
Help became a transaction the moment repayment was assumed. Genuine help doesn't come with an instalment plan, and staying grateful isn't the same as being on the hook.
What is digital surveillance in a relationship, and how is it different from ordinary sharing?
Tracking, password demands, monitoring read receipts or who liked a post. Ordinary sharing is mutual and revocable; surveillance is one-directional and enforced.
Name one thing you can do for a friend that costs you almost nothing and is genuinely useful.
Believe them the first time and say so. Most people who don't disclose are stopped by fear of not being believed — being believed early is the cheapest thing you'll ever do for someone.
Your best friend is being frozen out. No one has said anything — they've just stopped being included. What is happening, and what's your move?
Exclusion without a stated reason is a real harm; the absence of a fight doesn't make it nothing. Name what you see to them, then change your own behavior before you try to change the group's.
Your partner wants to know your location at all times “for safety.” It could be genuine worry or it could be surveillance. How do you actually tell the difference?
Look at what happens when you say no. Real concern accepts a boundary and may still feel anxious; surveillance treats the boundary itself as the problem and escalates.
Why does “consent” get harder to assess as the power gap grows — and what does that shift onto the person holding more power?
Because agreement under pressure is compliance, not choice. The person with more power can't decide for themselves that it was freely given; they have to treat hesitation as a no.
Someone you're seeing asks for a photo you don't want to send, then says there are already screenshots of your messages. What's the honest full answer?
You never have to send it, and a threat is not a reason to comply. Whoever is threatening you is the one breaking the law, and telling an adult is still available no matter what has already happened.
Why does relationship harm around first-year students often go unspoken? Name the real barriers, not the tidy ones.
Not recognizing it as harm, believing it's their fault, fearing they won't be believed, fear of losing the friend group — plus the practical ones: no money, no transport, a shared housing contract, shared friends.