Roommates. You can’t live with them, and with a poor college student’s budget, you can’t live without them. Usually it just feels like the first. But there has to be some sort of positive to go along with all the negatives. The pros and cons list in your head, that is kept up to date with every communication and confrontation, must be somewhat balanced.
Freshman year of college means moving to a strange environment where you don’t know many people-—if any at all. Juggling roommates, new friends, clubs, class and everything in between is just a normality of campus life. If there is one thing you are most anxious about, it’s about meeting your new roommate. What will he or she be like? Will we get along? What if we are complete opposite?
Everyone has heard the horror stories of the party animal roommate never in the room or the exact opposite: the vampire roommate who never leaves the room. In dining halls and classrooms you hear bragging of “the worst roommate story ever” as people huddle to listen to the “one-upper” who prefaces every story with “you’ll never believe what my roommate did.” The bad roommate is a rite of passage in the college world and part of college is learning how to tackle tough issues. But is it really worth it to wish for the perfect roommate?
Fast forwarding a year to sophomore to senior students not living in dorms, there still comes issues with roommates. Apartment advertisements nowadays are practically screaming for the perfect roommate. “Wanted: person who doesn’t like conflict, always cleans up after themselves and loves puppies.” Apart from finding the person who loves puppies, which would be quite easy, is it so easy to find someone who you click with 100 percent of the time, perhaps even 110 percent?
Looking at yourself you might see yourself as the perfect roommate, the one that your roommate is lucky to live with. You don’t snore, you do your laundry once a week (or every other week) and have no strange habits. But is this really just part of your imagination?
The idea of the “perfect roommate” needs to be abolished from the dreams from college students nationwide. There is no such thing. While fulfilling everything on your Bucky List, making the passing grade in your classes and preparing for the world outside, living the college lifestyle doesn’t exactly have room for being the perfect roommate yourself.
It seems tedious to remind your roommate every day that dishes have to be washed before they are put back into the cabinet or that 4 a.m. is not the time to be testing out their new speakers (especially the day before your huge Psych test), but remember that we are all humans and have our faults. As cheesy as that sounds, I think we need to remember that your roommate won’t know you hate what they do, unless you tell them. Though the university suggests RA involvement, sometimes the easiest thing is simply to tell your roommate what is going on. You and your roommate don’t have to be on the best of terms, but you should at least be able to feel like your dorm (or apartment) is home. For the 9 months of school, that is.
While the horror stories are fun to share, perhaps we should stick to making fun of our own silly habits. After all, you still probably haven’t done your laundry for this week.
Do you remember your roommate from Freshman year? How has your experience with roommates been during your time here at UW-Madison? Were you the good, neat roommate or the one of horror stories? Tell us all of your roommate tales and please send all feedback to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
