Roommates
Ah, roomies. I have amused myself mightily reading and listening to stories of people and their roommates. Sometimes they go well, and everyone is friends, other times, they turn to heck, and I wonder about humanity. I thought it would be amusing to tell my roommate story.
I’ve only had one roommate (at my college, everyone lives in suites, so here I’m defining a roommate as someone that shares your actual room). We were pretty much randomly assigned to each other before freshman year, and at first, I thought we would get along wonderfully, but soon we did little more than tolerate each other.
My roomie, I’ll call her Mia, and I were very different. I am taller than the average American woman, a bit sarcastic, not prone to be overly emotional (a post about that coming soon). Mia is quite short, was a cheerleader in high school, and very into looking the part. I realized soon that we didn’t have much in common, but tried to stay friendly. I had made friends during a pre-orientation program that I attended and really had little interest in her. There were nine girls in that suite, so she had plenty of friends to choose from.
So the year goes on, and soon enough there’s some drama. About chores, and about decorating the suite. First, I wasn’t going to contribute toward brand name furnishings that I was not going to use with people that I already knew I wasn’t going to room with after that year. I just didn’t have money like that to spare. About chores, I couldn’t bring myself to clean the upstairs bathroom when I lived downstairs. It was a matter of principle. I don’t clean bathrooms that I don’t use unless I’m being paid. I thought these things were minor, and we had moved past them, but it turns out that Ms. Mia had been talking about me behind my back.
That was cool, we didn’t have to be friends, and anyway, she quickly got a boyfriend and began spending every night at his place. Said boyfriend was always a jerk to me, so I can only imagine the things she said to him.
I don’t want to imply that I was the perfect roomie, because I wasn’t. I am a homebody more than anything else, so I was in the room a lot. Looking back, she probably felt crowded out of our small room, but if she wanted privacy, she could have just asked. Also, I pretty much ignored her when she was in the room. That’s just because I don’t talk much unless I have something to say, though I could see how that may make someone like her feel uncomfortable.
Anyway, through some of the things she said to me and to some friends of mine (who know her through a very different social circle), I came to realize that Mia was totally selfish and spoiled. I mean, she didn’t even realize that not everyone had swimming pools in her home state of California! (Totally serious there.) My final straw was when she left the window open with a loose screen, and an open candy bar on her desk. I woke early the next morning to a squirrel in the room and had to call animal control to get it out. It seems a silly thing, but you never know, right? Thankfully, that was only about two months before the end of the school year.
I haven’t spoken to her since, though I saw her around campus once or twice. To be honest, I probably wouldn’t recognize her if I saw her walking down the sidewalk tomorrow.
The next year, I moved into a suite with the most amazing people ever (though I had my own room)! We stayed together until I moved off campus during senior year.
I kinda sorta ignored my freshman roommate too, though by the end of the year she still thought of me as nice. I think the social awkwardness got in the way of her knowing the truth.