Roomies Taught Me Why It's Best To Live Alone
Aug 20 '04 (Updated Aug 23 '04)
The Bottom Line Friends with roommates? You've got to be kidding. Follow these rules...you'll be so much better off.
I feel a reference to the Real World coming on. Why? Well, let me see. The familiar tagline from that long-running reality show seems most appropriate when it comes to the way college roommates work:
“Find out what happens when seven strangers stop being polite and get real.”
Of course I never lived in a house with seven people, but I did live in campus housing with anywhere between a total of two and six and that particular line says so much. There is nothing glamorous about having roommates and there is often nothing friendly about the bonds you make. In fact, over the course of the four years of campus housing I endured for my first Bachelor’s degree I was housed with a grand total of thirteen very different people from very different backgrounds and with incredibly different values (if they had them at all).
Fortunately none of them began as my friends, because they so wouldn’t have ended up that way. Why? Well the way it works in college (for you people who have yet to go) is that if you live with your friends you will not like them; hence you will have lost any friendship you began with. It is better to make friends and not live with them. Don’t believe me a girl who never lived with her friends (though I did live with what I consider to be “passing friends”)? Well take it from the dozens of folks I know who started school with their “friends” and by no later than the end of the first semester or year HATED them with a burning passion like none other. I know specifically of people who were locked out of dorm rooms by “friends” who didn’t want them coming in past 9pm. I also know of people who turned all psycho and possessive. It only gets worse from there.
So my suggestion is simply to go with the luck of the draw as your method of choosing a roommate. Of course, that by no means is a key to a match. As far as actually getting along with your roommate or suitemate, my personal experience is that you have exactly (get your pen and paper out now folks—this is serious business) a 28.57% chance of even the slightest connection. Heck, now I only speak to two of my thirteen past roommates in any way shape or form—and that is only every year or two at a wedding and in occasional e-mail updates. Please don’t EVER make the mistake of latching on to any roommate (including your first ever in college) and pretending to be their best friend or vice versa. It will only end in cataclysmic fights, hate filled e-mails (which during my era were only beginning to become something), momentous deception, and last but not least somebody sleeping with somebody else’s boyfriend.
Okay. Not that last thing personally, but again I know personally of that happening time and time again.
Of course just merely not getting along is on the tip of the iceberg. Next, may I make the informed suggestion to never ever lend anything out to anybody regardless of how close you think you are? Now that I’ve probably got you asking the question “why,” let me make this simple. If you lend something to somebody there are approximately four ways in which it will be returned: never, in horrid condition, via a third party that subsequently destroyed it, or perfectly. The rarest of these is undoubtedly the fourth “perfect” way. I never experienced that, but in fables it is possible. I’ve had thing returned to be with cigarette butts, with dirt, with blue maui puke, with sex stains, and with breaks. It just ain’t worth the effort folks—there is no friend to be made in the person who will unquestionably return the item (be it dishes, clothes, or books) in subpar condition.
Next, may I just say that there is no value to be gotten by sharing with your roommates. What I mean by sharing is in the form of food or small appliances or toiletries or (god forbid) feminine hygiene products. As it is, things will disappear. You’ll think you have a popsicle left, but when you go to retrieve it, it will be gone. You’ll think you have a toaster, but suddenly it will be MIA. But if you’d really like things to begin to go AWOL, let me just say that there is one best way—open the floodgates of “sharing.” I know this sounds pessimistic and that your parents and kindergarten teacher taught you differently, but if you want anything to be where you want it or of the “full level” you’d hope it to be DO NOT SHARE. My personal experience have included buying pop tarts, eating one out of one wrapper, returning the next day and finding every last damn one gone. I’ve also lost an Ice Tea Maker, found damn hair in my toothpaste and so forth. Again…be smart and do not share. Especially money (you’re not THAT stupid are you?). Oh, and don’t cut anybody any slack for any reason whatsoever.
The fourth and final golden rule is that of the roommate’s friend. Do not think that they are vicariously your friend also. They are not. In fact, consider them to be your mortal enemy. Why? Well, because they are—silly. Jeesh. Anyway, if your roommate shoes up with a group of friends (oft of the variety you do not recognize, rarely shave, and smell of random sweet things) consider it immediately to be a hostile situation. Hide all of your belongings, cling on to anything valuable, and immediately eat anything that you vaguely consider to be valuable food. Why? Well, my personally experience with this is pretty tragic. I had a lovely green backpack full to the brim with a completed graduate application, various bills, classroom books, a tape recorded (for my job as a reporter), a wallet, and many other things. One roommate had a liter of acetone sitting in the proximity. Other roommate invites a whole group of future NHL hockey players (aka certifiably insane and also imbecilic) to our townhouse. Of course, I made the mistake of SLEEPING. Anyway, one of the ass…errr…jokers got the brilliant idea of mixing together both things. A dash of backpack and important stuff here, a whole hell of a lot of acetone there. The final result was a bunch of stains, a heck of a lot of ruined paperwork, a stuck together book or three, and finally a melted handheld recorder. Nice, eh? Anyway, do not trust friends. Period.
Of course to further illustrate my many varied points, I must speak specifically to the many creatures I chose to live with and were randomly assigned. I’ll omit the four folks who I liked even vaguely leaving me with but nine. But do not despair; they are lovely folks with which come many lovely stories. I’ll choose but one story and a few observations.
Oh do stick around. Take a moment, get educated, and get a clue before you too make a similar unfortunate mistake. I’ll only warn you this one time. I do hope my entire tale of woe helps at least one person as it is intended to. And without further ado, here goes nothing. My roommates are listed with first initial and last and chronologically only so as to protect the inn—err—guilty. Truth be told, many of them may have eventually become productive (though I do suspect not).
A.A.
a.k.a. “The Angry Rural Ghetto Girl”
Growing up in the wild white north made this wanna be ghetto girl rather, uh, mad to say the very least. I thought it was a bit strange when I found her singing Toni Braxton at the top of her lungs. Strange, yes, but forgivable. I also thought it a bit strange when she brought a nasty fellow (Adam if memory serves) home and drunkenly did the nasty with him in her bed (which coincidentally was a pull out within 8 inches of my own) while I laid sleeping…sort of. I also loved her accent—really, especially from such a small town girl. But once she began leaping onto hoods of cars and snapping off antennas and also pouring pitchers of (cheap) beer over girls’ heads I was done with her. Miss thang had a major attitude problem.
J.J.
a.k.a. “The Spoiled Brat of Recently Divorced Parents”
It was only $7. Seriously. Split among the five of us, cable cost $7 a month. You’d think a “girl” (using this term incredibly loosely) who spent approximately $300 a week on Tommy among other things could manage $7. Big fat nope to that. I got in major fights with the brat of it. In addition, she routinely ate in her bedroom and threw her fruit and yoghurt in her trash which was subsequently NEVER emptied. This led to incredible hoards of both ants and flies and the most rotten stench imaginable. Plus, I must yell at her more than a bit for ruining the Ice Tea maker I talked about above and throwing it out “before sheeee notices.”
E.F.
a.k.a. “The Disrespectful Smoker Who Ashes Everwhere”
I wanted to like her, I really did. In addition to crabbing incessantly about having to use maxi pads (oh yes…it was lovely…this Miss thang had toxic shock once thank-ya-very-much) she smoked like a chimney. No biggie. Problem was that she also used my mugs to ash in while smoking in her room. And since I owned them, I was supposed to clean them. Nice, eh? Plus, I really had no particular fondness for listening to she and her equally dopey boyfriend having sex every night…it didn’t help that the whole suite was cinderblock and the actual bedrooms were separated (get this) by particle board.
C.G.
a.k.a. “The Yucky, Misguided Canadian Gal”
I wanted to like her, I really did and had it not been for one lovely incident during finals that sealed the deal I may have. In fact, that incident led very specifically to an incident in which I drank way the heck too much and took way the heck too much Sudafed. I didn’t end up with my stomach pumped, but I do recall losing both a contact (which I couldn’t afford to re-buy) and an earring. Anyway, sheeee (and I don’t have anything against Canadians…heck, I kinda like them) was incredibly messy and subscribed to much the same theories as EF as far as dishes went. She’s use them, not wash them, leave them in the sink, and then expect ME to clean them. Plus there was the time she left her toothbrush in the middle of the goddamn common room floor. It didn’t get knocked there. She left it.
E.E.
a.k.a. “The Great Missing Roommate”
I really don’t have much to say about her aside from the fact that she didn’t sleep there. Not one night. Daddy was her coach, and she as a member was supposed to live on campus. Since she has a “serious” boyfriend (keep in mind we were about 19 years old then and very few things were “serious”) she basically lived with him. I didn’t ever see her…but at least she paid her freakin’ $7 cable bill. Boy did I ever like J.J. The horse faced you-know-what.
R.O.
a.k.a. “The Born Again Nympho”
Continuing on, this was the first one I actually chose to live with initially. We really did have some things in common. Our majors were the same, but see RO was also very different than me. She was a certifiable and admitted bitch. Nice, eh? Anyway, I respected her honestly for a while. But when I realized she really was one, I really couldn’t deal any more. One perfect example was that she begged her mommy (who coincidentally raised her alone and still also lived with the ‘rents) for a car. Soon thereafter, she had a brand spankin’ new car. Me, well, I still drove the lovely Escort Pony. Anyway, my favorite was that she’d had sex with some 40 guys by the time she was 20. She up and decided that she was a “born again virgin” and that she wouldn’t tell new guys she’s slept with random Mexicans in Cancun. Not just that, she NEVER knew there name and was once PROUD of it. Plus, she was the same gal that insisted she’d never marry anybody without at least 2 carats in hand. Methinks since she married a lovely (I used to call him—and I quote—fatass) fellow, she didn’t get that wish. Too bad. She was greeeeat. Plus, she did the single worst thing to me ever during my senior year; something so bad and unmentionable and unforgivable that I do dub her the single worst human being ever.
W.M.
a.k.a. “The Insane, Cruel, Jealous Backwoods B*tch”
Another lovely small town gal that had clearly grown up with too few trips to the dentist. Anyway, I too chose to live with her. We too had the same major and truth be told I was much more similar to WM than to RO. Anyway, at first I liked her but then I realized her humor was more that of hate and hurt and ridiculous amounts of jealousy. I could have dealt with that had she not hidden cookies from me and ate them with the other roommates. I could have dealt with it had she not begun hiding the toilet paper. I could have dealt with it had she not decided 90 degrees was a good temperature to have a bedroom at (I subsequently opened the window and stole the crank to get back at her). I count have dealt with it had I not found her rifling through my senior thesis materials with my grades in hand while standing on the desk. Heck, she said she was looking for a pencil. I believed her. Really. Or not.
K.P.
a.k.a. “The Pseudo Barbie Girl”
At first I liked her. But as time began to go on, I realized it was a bit strange that a 24 year old wanted to live with 20 and 21 year olds. But I was fine with it…she was nice enough. Then I realized that lovely KP had never shown her parents her consistently failing grades (she’d been in college since immediately out of HS and was still a freakin’ JUNIOR) and had always forged her report cards. In fact, her younger sister had to go to community college because KP cost them too much money. KP then decided to wear all pink (often much too short for her booty) and dubbed herself after joining the sorority RO was president of “Barbie Girl.” Obnoxious. Stupid. Ridiculous. And considering the fact that she named herself after the freakin’ Aqua song absolutely and completely unforgivable.
A.F.
a.k.a. “The Alcoholic”
Ah yes. The last one. I like AF when she wasn’t drunk. She was a good girl. She also knew her mother had a major drinking problem. Anyway, AF was only 20. She’d get drunk every night. No biggie during college—I knew plenty of folks that did this yet she is the only one I knew who was a real alcoholic. Stupid at that. Anyway, AF would drink 8 (or so) beers, hop in her car, drive across to Canada (she was too young to drink here), drink more, pick up some stinky guy, drive home, drink some more, have sex. You get the picture—real productive. Anyway, after this happened time and time again I was elected by the roommates (only one of the five is mentioned above) to talk to her. She was drunk when this was deemed appropriate. I talked to her calmly as she at 5'4" threatened to beat my bum at 5'10". I wasn’t afraid. What I was however afraid of was the damn futon in the living room she had sex on every night and smelled of the same stench that permeated our entire townhouse—you know the one. Stink feet mixed with morning after sex and booze. Oh yeah, last thing I knew she'd been disallowed in Canada because of her DUI. She went anyway and ran off to Alberta to live at a logging camp with some random guy.
So if that doesn’t freak you out enough, I don’t know what will. There are but four roommates I’d be at all friendly with if cornered in a dark alley. Two of them I’ve seen, two of them I’ve not. Oh well. Not that it really matters anyway. If a few good things came out of the whole campus living situation, I do at least now know more about people. I also know what not to do. I also know who not to make friends with. Oh yeah and I got a degree and a husband out of the whole things—and some friends I never lived with. Go into college expecting the worst because it’s bound to turn out that way.
I am a pessimist. College roomies made me that way.
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Member: Shelly T.
Location: Metro Detroit, Michigan
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