#6

A Reality: I kinda have a crappy roommate.
   So obviously I knew this was a possibility when I signed up for a double room in the dorms this year without choosing a roommate. This is actually my second year in a double (though only 1 week left before I'm done with finals and move out), mostly because I'm cheap and didn't want to pay extra for a single for a couple years. I did get a single for next fall, however, and I'll probably get an apartment the year (or two, there's a good chance I'll spend 5 years in college) after that. So neither of my roommate experiences have been awesome, though neither has been terrible. I guess I don't have a whole lot I can really complain about. But I'll just put my thoughts down anyway.
     My first roommate I lived with in a double room my freshman year. I actually really liked where that room was. It was right on the first floor and close to the bathroom, trash room, and laundry room. Very convenient. We had a cool floor (at least the guy's half, most of the girls kept to themselves, except Vee) and an awesome RA. My RA used to read us Cosmo sometimes and we'd take the quizzes together. My roommate was OK. I think the biggest problem was that we went into the year with very different goals/expectations. My roommate (let's call him Ed- he was an education major) was very dependent on his friends. I think they were kinda the way he defined himself. He needed people he could hang out with, and be buddy-buddy with. That's not to say he couldn't ever spend time alone. He just had to hang out with his friends every weekend and go out and party. On the other hand, I prefer to have only a couple close friends and then a couple people that I consider somewhere between friends and acquaintances at any one time. I don't feel the need to hang out all the time, and I'm not going to feel moody and abandoned if I don't see my friends for a couple days. Ed went into the year looking to be best friends with his roommate (me). I think he's one of those people who doesn't think of the fact that you get kinda sick of anyone if you live in a tiny room with them for a year, and it tends to be worse if you're friends who don't get lots of space from each other. I think he views being best friends with the person he lives with almost like one big, long sleepover. I went into the year hoping for someone I didn't hate and could just get along with. Maybe make small talk with once in a while, but for the most part ignore. I think Ed was extremely disappointed that we didn't really have anything in common. Some of our mutual friends on the floor later told me he complained he couldn't talk about sports, cars, or girls with me. That person's reply was, "you could probably talk about girls, you two just have very different tastes". Which was true. He liked to party and drink every weekend (especially first semester) and I only drink twice a semester, and usually in a small group setting. So he found his own group of friends and I found mine. We'd occasionally go eat in the dining hall together, but not a whole lot. We just kinda did our own thing. We kept similar hours, which was really nice. We coexisted. I was happy with it, and I think Ed figured it could be worse. He did end up living with a bunch of his friends in a quadruple this year, so I hope he's happier with that. We run into each other some, but we barely acknowledge each other (unless one of us is drunk, then we usually talk for a bit).
     All together, there were only two things that really irritated me about him. 1) Ed was kinda oblivious about some things, like cleaning. Not like cleaning as a whole; we both kept the room relatively clutter free. It was more like, once he puked in the sink and a little in the trashcan. I don't think he ever really cleaned out the trashcan so it always had a little stain in it. The sink ended up backing up, and it was a pain to use it for a week before I finally dealt with it myself and bought drain cleaner (which he never even offered to pay me back for). He moved out a couple days before me and he apparently didn't think to clean out behind his desk, because I had to do that before I left. Just little things like that. It wasn't malicious, just oblivious. 2) Starting second semester after spring break, Ed barely left the room on weekends. He'd go out in the evenings, but he'd be around all day when I wanted to study (I don't usually get stuff done on weekend nights even if I don't drink). It'd have been fine if he had been studying too or something, but what he'd do is sit in front of the t.v. with ESPN on all day. They'd start repeating things he'd seen earlier and he'd still watch it. While on his laptop playing minesweeper. He wasn't doing anything, just sitting in the room. I like to read laying down in bed, but I can't concentrate with noise very well, so basically every weekend, I'd spend a while trying to be productive in the room before finally giving up and going somewhere else. Again, not malicious, just oblivious. I'm not entirely sure why he suddenly starting doing that on the weekends. I think it may have been because his friends kinda wanted to hang out with some of their other friends a little more. I think Ed had this little fantasy about an insanely close group of friends that did absolutely everything together. When it didn't work like that, he withdrew a little. They still did stuff together in the evenings, but he didn't want to go out and find other people to hang out with during the day.
     Basically, like I said, me and Ed weren't best friends, we just kinda coexisted. It worked fine, though I think he was always a little disappointed with it. This is so long, I'll talk about my other roommate in a separate post. My dad's coming down this weekend and should be here sometime relatively soon. I don't know if I'll post the next part later today, or tomorrow, or when. Finals are here, so life's a little busy. And I do realize at least most of this post didn't really show how crappy a roommate I have. Ed was perfectly tolerable to live with, but I wasn't originally planning on talking about him, and I'm too lazy to go change stuff at the beginning. I promise my next post will be more on topic. Not that anybody's reading these anyway. I'm OK with that :)