Roomies!
Going into college I was never worried about being put into a room with a person I had never met, despite that horror movie that came out a couple years ago with the psycho roomie who ripped her roommate's belly button ring out and other such insane things. You always hear about people having roommate drama but more often you hear about how a person's college roommate became their best friend!
There are only four people (including me) from my graduating class who attend the same college as I do. At Ouachita, you pretty much just sign a form saying whether or not you know who you want to room with or not and in the not case you are assigned a random roommate. My best friend from high school attends Ouachita with me and so at first I thought it would be a fun idea to room with her, however she applied and did her roommate form way before I even decided to go to Ouachita, so that idea went quickly out the window. I was assigned a random roommate and I got her information so I texted her to find out more about her and she told me that she had decided not to go to Ouachita because she wanted to stay closer to home. So that was strike number two. I was frantically emailing my Admissions Counselor trying to figure out what on earth to do about not having a roommate! Then my bestie from high school told me about this GroupMe with a whole bunch of the incoming freshmen in it. I joined and was quickly surprised by how many students that were coming to Ouachita were on the app too. As I messaged back and forth with people I met a girl, who I will call B. Both of us were roommate-less and so we got to talking and decided that we should room together. I was so thrilled to finally have a set-in-stone roommate and not have to worry about it anymore.
Over the entire summer leading up to move-in, B and I texted and messaged back and forth making plans for our room, discussing what color theme we should have, and just getting to know more about each other before we actually met. We were ecstatic to finally meet when it came to move-in day and we had so much fun setting up our room and actually figuring each other out in real life. We hung out a lot during the first couple weeks while we were getting to know our school and while we did freshman orientation type things. We discovered that we both love Harry Potter, Adam Lambert, Disney Princesses, and lots of other things. We made plans to volunteer together at the local animal shelter and we were very supportive of one another in our activities. Our personalities differed quite a bit though. She's an only child and had been pretty sheltered growing up. I have 5 siblings and I have never really been sheltered or been gullible.
Flash forward to Fall Break and B came home with me so I could show her where I'm from and so we could hang out away from school. While I was home I had to get my tattoo fixed because it didn't heal right the first time I got it done, so I just got it filled in. B had really been wanting a tattoo and so she decided that when I went to get mine fixed, she would get her first one! She even drew it herself. The thing was that B's mom was very opposed to tattoos and so B didn't tell her mom that she was getting one until after she did it. B's mom was livid and tried to blame her decision to get a tattoo on me. B's mom told her that she didn't love her anymore and that she wasn't allowed to ever come home again. It was mortifying. After that incident B did not have a good rest of the fall break and she was heartbroken that her own mother would say things like that. When we got back to school, things were kind of tense between us and it just felt pretty awkward. A couple weekends later, B's mom came down to visit her (because she had already planned to do it and decided she wouldn't go back on her word) and made a big scene of chewing B out. B was supposed to be on my team for Harry Potter Trivia Night but with her mom there she just felt extremely awkward and uncomfortable so she had to quit. After their fight, B's mom kind of got over herself and apologized to B for saying all the mean things that she said.
A few weeks after that and we come up on Halloween. I went to one of my friend's house to spend the night and B went home for the weekend. When she came back, she was acting very strange. She wouldn't talk to me unless I spoke to her directly and it was very short answers and I had no idea what was up. This went on for two or three days before I texted her and asked her why she was avoiding me. She told me that it was because I "was always negative" and I "always put her in a bad mood." I was really thrown aback. Sure our personalities were different but I had no idea that she felt this way about me. I quickly apologized and promised to do what I could to make her feel happier. I called my mom to ask her about the situation and she felt like when B went home, her parents kind of poisoned her mind into blaming me for the tattoo again and just making her think that I was generally corrupting her. I was really hurt that she felt that way and was unsure of how to react.
Things were starting to get better and we were acting like friends again when all of a sudden, B started to doing really petty and immature things to get on my nerves. I don't think B was able to read me, so when I was being funny she thought I was being serious and vice versa. For example, one day I went to throw something away in the big trash cans in our hall and I left the door propped open, but she pushed the door closed so that I was locked out. I stood outside listening to her cackle and I banged on the door several times before she finally let me back in and it just really rubbed me the wrong way. Other events happened prior to that one that really just added up and made me upset. She soon stopped talking to me in person again, so when it came to be time for us to fill out our room intention sheets for this upcoming semester, I texted her and told her that I didn't think we should room together next semester and I didn't know what went wrong and I was sorry for that. She responded that what went wrong was that I "was always mean to her and she was tired of dealing with it." I was so surprised at this response as well. I talked to my resident director about what I should do and she told me that out of respect I needed to communicate my plans to B in person.
I was super nervous about talking to B about what my plans were because I am a very non-confrontational person. But I basically just told myself to grow up and get it over with. I basically told B that I was planning on rooming with AA (my new roommate) and that she (B) could keep the room that we have because I had plans to move to a different dorm. B didn't hesitate to rudely reply "Oh I know I get to keep this room and if you thought for one minute that you could keep this room after telling me that you're moving out then you're an idiot." I was flabbergasted! It took me a few seconds before I could think of something to say and when I tried to continue, B left the room and slammed the door in my face. After that we certainly weren't talking to each other anymore and when I came back from band rehearsal that day, B had taken everything that we shared that she had payed for and hidden it from me.
There was still quite a bit of time before the end of the semester that we were going to have to live together and deal with each other, so I was pretty stressed about the awkwardness that I faced. But, before long, and after all the fuss about her keeping the room, she moved down the hall into a room with another girl and I had the room to myself for the rest of the semester.
Needless to say, I learned a lot from my roommate situation in my first semester of college. Now that I am going to be rooming with someone I have actually met and made a friendship with and know for sure that we are compatible roommates, I'm hoping to have a stress free living situation. Plus, I get to move into the upperclassman dorms so I'd say that's a win for me! Both me and AA had bad roommate experiences our first semester and so we made darn sure that it wouldn't happen again.
My advice for rooming with someone you've never met is to try your best to find things you have in common and enjoy those things together. Establish your pet peeves and what really irks you so that your roomie knows what to avoid doing. Respect what your roomie asks of you whether it's to not have friends over past a certain time or to change the toilet paper roll if you are the one to use the last of the tp off of it. Whatever you do, be kind and a be a friend to your roomie. Make the most out of living with him/her!
That's all I've got to say about roommates for this post and I hope you can learn something from the unfortunate situation I dealt with! ~Em
