It’s the end of the semester and you just suffered through an intolerable freshman year. You’re convinced that your randomly assigned roommate is the spawn of Satan — I mean, what else could explain her perpetual need to set a blaring alarm at 4:35 am every-fucking-day to “get her swole on?” What’s worse, she totally narc’d on you the one time you had a ‘male visitor’ past hours. Basically, she is the worst and after a year of dealing with her passive aggressive (and in some instances, outright aggressive) shenanigans, you can’t wait to move into a house full of your best friends. This next year will be the best year of your life with the best roommates ever, right?
Wrong.
I get it. You imagine that living in a house with all your best friends is just going to be one giant slumber party all the time with unlimited wine, gossip, and clothes. And it will be, for like the first two-ish weeks, until reality sets in. At some point, it’s going to stop being one giant sleepover and you are going to need to actually live together. Those adorable little quirks that make you love your friend, like her predisposition to eating super pungent food, are going to make you hate her as a roommate. You’ll overlook these small transgressions because, in the grand scheme of things, they don’t actually matter. Right? Well, kind of.
Yes, these annoying things don’t actually matter, but that doesn’t mean that admitting that is going to piss you off any less. Contrary to what guys think, girls are actually pretty easy to understand. You see this small conflict with your roommate as something unnecessary to start an argument over, because after all, she is your best friend. So you avoid confrontation and instead low-key bitch about her to another friend, or even worse, another roommate. All you really want is validation that no, you aren’t crazy, and yes, Jessica is a bitch for cooking curry four nights a week and turning your quaint, college apartment into something that smells more similar to the Slumdog Millionaire ghetto. Your friends will agree with you and you’ll be able to sleep at night knowing that you’re right and Jessica is wrong.
That is until another one of Jessica’s quirks rears its ugly head. This will be a continual pattern. One of your roommates does something to piss you, you talk shit about them but never address it, and then you feel validated. But one day, it’s all going to be too much. No matter how many candles you light, the house always smells like a Bengaluru slum, Jessica’s shoes are scattered about the living room, and you’re convinced that this bitch has never washed a dish the entire time you’ve all lived there, let alone taken out the garbage. And you know what? You fucking snap. You eviscerate Jessica like only a grade-A psycho can and World War III erupts in the house. Roommates take sides, lines are drawn, friendships are ruined, and someone decides they need to move out.
Maybe you read the above portion and think I’m just being dramatic, that there is no way this actually happens. Including my immediate and secondary friend group, I have personally seen this happen five times in the last two years, all because girls decided living with their best friends would be more fun than living with good roommates. It sucks. Not only because it’s sad to watch, but mostly because it’s completely avoidable.
Your best friends are your best friends because your personalities click, so it’s only natural to think that you’d be good roommates. But you need to pay attention to things other than how much fun you guys all have Thursday thru Sunday. If you’re a type A personality clean freak and your best friend always has clothes scattered about her room, that’s not suddenly going to change when you start living together. You might think you’ll be able to deal with it, but you won’t. Instead, you’ll just slowly grow to resent her and her constant messiness until the above situation unfolds and you’re down a friend.
Rooming with people is hard because no matter how many annoying quirks you think they have, I can guarantee that you have just as many. In my experience, it’s better to room with someone who you’re a good roommate with as opposed to someone you’re good friends with. That way when you have to vent about them, you don’t run the risk of it getting back to them through one of your friends. You might think you’re missing out by not living in the party house with your whole squad, but after a month, all of your friends are going to be running to you to take sanctuary from all the craziness that is undoubtedly happening.
And you’ll just be there sitting pretty, thanking whatever deity you pray to that you made the right choice and decided not to live with your best friends..
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ChampagneShowers
Champagne Showers is a contributing writer for TSM. She is your typical Northern Diva. If curse words, sexual content, and drug use offend you, then bless your heart. CS will continue living the life you're too scared to live. email her at: champagne_showers@outlook.com
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