Whether you’re total strangers tossed together by the housing system, amiable acquaintances, or friends who don’t want to kill each other after long periods of time, rooming with someone is no walk in the park. At their best, roommates can provide myriad virtues to your college home life, but sooner or later you’re going to clash.

Music taste is the centerpiece of compatibility. Unfortunately, it’s not something you can viably require on a lease or a housing application. It’s also not a viable defense for murder, so before you are driven to acts of insanity by your roommate’s constant musical theatre sing-alongs or three straight hours of Shania Twain’s “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” (true story), there are some basic defense mechanisms you should have in your arsenal.

Invest in friends with similar taste

Seriously. This is college. Whatever obscure, Scandinavian postcore band you’re into, it’s safe to say you’re not the only one. Go forth and round up the other nerds like you to help you sustain the belief that your tastes aren’t irrelevant.

You’ll also want to invest in a good pair of soundproof headphones for those times when you’re forced to cohabitate your space and your crew isn’t around to bolster your morale. Keep your iPod close; your enemy has already moved in.

Assess your own self-righteousness

This may be a shocking revelation, but what if you’re the one with bad taste? Before you run off to nurse your wounded pride, hear me out. Taste is relative. Ask yourself: Has anyone ever told me that my music is crap? If the answer is no, chances are you’re a hater, and they’ve just waited till you were out of the room.

Perspective is a beautiful thing. It might be painful to watch your roomie genuinely enjoying that new One Direction, but they’d probably say the same about that sophisticated, 27-minute ambient track you discovered last week. One person’s trash is another’s eargasm.

Recommend and bond

Have you ever actually talked to your roommate about music? My guess is you’ve been too busy plugging your ears to attempt finding some common ground. Take a minute to ask them what they vibe with. If brostep is their thing at the moment, try suggesting something similar but a little more you. I promise that it’ll go over better than other choice words one could use to describe “Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites” for the 100th time in a row. If you share an interest in at least one genre or artist, make a Pandora station and beat it down until there is harmonious agreement to both your ears.

Deal with it

There are times when we must all suck it up and accept that nobody actually cares what we think. You can think of this as preparation for, you know, the rest of your life, when no one will care about what you listened to in college.

Your roommate might not be that impressed with your vintage vinyl collection, and that’s OK — that’s what friends are for. They probably don’t care that it’s uncouth to love Iggy Azalea, all they know is that “Fancy” is their jam. Just let them have their moment. You might even realize that it’s OK to like something that everyone else likes.