Hello everyone! Today’s tales will be about my roommates from undergrad, some of whom were completely crazy!

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I feel like I’ve probably shared snippets of these people but here’s some more on them because it’s really a few crazy tales.

Also, as you can see, I’m doing Blogmas again this year! That means I’ll be blogging every day until Christmas. I’ve done Blogmas in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 so I am happy to be participating again in 2020.

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Freshman Roommate #1 – The Racist

So my first roommate is one I’ll call “Lori”. (Not her actual name!) Lori and I were placed together as random roommates, probably because we many similar extracurricular activities in high school that we answered on our housing questionnaire. We were both swimmers and played flute, so I guess they thought that’d be a good start. Indeed, we did meet up twice before the year and seemed to get along just fine. I did tell her my dad had been laid off though a few weeks prior due to the recession (2009…) and she seemed to understand so she said she didn’t mind bringing in most of the big stuff for the room like a mini fridge because she’d already gotten it (she admitted her family was pretty well off).

Well, it was soon clear that Lori had issues. I moved in first, as I was in cross country (I have crazy stories from that too), so I set my stuff up, went on the retreat, and came back, living completely on my own in the room. Eventually she moved in for the freshman orientation, a week before classes start when it’s just freshmen in the dorms. Well, she was invited to an off-campus party and tried to convince me to go. I declined as that wasn’t really my scene and I was surprised she was so eager to go because it didn’t seem like hers either. Well, she came back sobbing, after forcing everyone that went with her to come back to campus with her because people were… drinking. And she suspected smoking. I had been hanging out with other freshmen on our floor so we all were very confused and asked her why she was so upset. Apparently she thought college parties were going to be sophisticated??? We just tried to calm her down and couldn’t believe she thought she was going to go to high tea or something. So weird.

Later on she got super offended that I didn’t rush for a sorority with her. There were 3 on campus and she wanted to join the “A” one because she said it was the best and the classiest. She said she didn’t want to join “B” because it was all the “easy” girls or “C” which was the girls that couldn’t get into “A” or “B”. Yeah… those were weird conversations. I didn’t have any interest in a sorority at all and I think she somehow got it into her head that we were supposed to be BFFs so she was so mad that I didn’t want to join with her and was mostly off doing my own thing at XC, student government, and several other clubs I didn’t have to beg to be accepted into. One night she was crying because she felt “A” didn’t want her, as they didn’t pay much attention to her. And after that she suddenly changed her tune and would go into any sorority that accepted her because it was her “dream”. Eventually she got into “C” and then tried to get me to join cheerleading with her, which I also didn’t do. And after that, things got NASTY.

At some point she went full racist on me. I remember an early conversation with her where she told me that “Indians” were trying to “steal” her family land. In reality, her family stole land from Native Americans. She admitted it but in a very convoluted way that made it clear that she didn’t think her family had done anything wrong. She called them nasty names and everything. It was super uncomfortable and I was more on the side of the Natives than hers so she was super mad at that. She also decided that my dad had been laid off because he was lazy, instead of the fact that his company shut down due to the recession. Later on, she got a nasty note (I wasn’t the only one she was rude to) and she decided I sent it even though she had no proof. Then she started talking to other people about me and making comments because I’m hispanic. Since I had a better relationship with most people, they would tell me and so I knew what she was saying. It got to the point where I was living as a third roommate (unofficially) in another dorm with friends, we both wanted new roommates quickly, and Res Life was eager to find us replacements.

Looking back, I think she was incredibly sheltered, lonely, and unaware of her privilege. She really hadn’t made friends because she ended up rubbing everyone the wrong way as no one really shared her point of view on stuff and the campus as a whole was way too liberal for her to fit in without her being willing to allow herself to be challenged. I believe she either transferred or dropped out because she really just wanted everyone to fall in line with what she wanted and didn’t know how to actually connect with people. I do feel sorry for her now and I hope she’s grown up since then, but she was not ready for the real world at 18 and caused me a lot of headaches for it!

Freshman Roommate #2 – The Stalker

So late in the first semester, I was hanging out with several members of the Student Government Association (SGA) that I had joined. I was one of two or three freshmen so the upperclassmen asked us what we thought so far of school. Naturally, roommates came up and I mentioned my issues. At first everyone was like, omg yeah first year roomies are horrible but quickly they realized how bad it was. One of them, who was a junior and President of SGA, actually had a bad roommate of her own. I’ll call her Molly. Molly joked about her own bad roomie and that we should put them together. Later on, Molly asked if I’d want to actually propose the change and I said yes. Molly was pretty cool so we propose the idea to Lori and Molly’s roommate who agreed. It took some convincing because I was in the freshman dorms and Molly’s roommate refused to move. Lori did too at first but eventually she realized the other dorm was better so she left. Res Life was hesitant because Molly was a junior but my situation with Lori was so bad, and Molly was the SGA President who did have a lot of influence on campus so they eventually agreed too.

Molly, like I said, was cool. Really the biggest issue we really had at first was that I tend to be messy and she wanted the room clean at all times as she gave tours to prospective students as her campus job. We were both busy and had our own friends so we didn’t hang out a ton but we’d sometimes grab food together or go on runs together. Molly was also a member of “C” sorority so she reported Lori for being racist towards me and the Natives, since I had told her the stories and she realized she had to report it due to their sorority rules. I’m sure that didn’t help Lori, who apparently didn’t get along with Molly’s former roommate either (big surprise).

Honestly Molly and I would have been fine except that Molly had a big life event during that semester. She suddenly because super stressed about knowing if I was safe, even calling my XC coach in the middle of the night to tell him I hadn’t come back to the dorm that night. That’s why I refer to her as the stalker. I had texted him that I wasn’t going to be at practice the next morning because I studied late that night but I hadn’t texted her and stayed at my friends’ dorm (the same one from the previous semester) because it was late. I had no idea she did that until a friend on the team told me the coach complained about me to her (they had a very inappropriate relationship, but that’s a whole other story). I later found out that Molly’s childhood friend had died suddenly and I guess it really shook Molly, causing her to go a little overboard with all her friends. Due to her behavior, we didn’t end on great terms but she was still pretty cool the following year anyway to me.

Sophomore Roommate – The Crazy One

My sophomore year roommate was one of the friends I unofficially roomed with freshman year. I’ll call her “Nicole”. Nicole and I were both members of the Hispanic student club but we weren’t super close until her roommate “Kinsley” and I became friends. Kinsley was in my German class and in band with me, and we hit it off right away. Nicole and I were friendly but not as close as Kinsley and I. Kinsley was planning to live off campus and while Nicole and I didn’t expect to be great roommates, we thought we could make it work and roomed together. Kinsley ended up living on campus after all so she got a random roommate that she hated and we housed her unofficially that year too.

The reason Nicole is the crazy roomie is because she was, well, a party girl. She would invite her friends from home over and they’d drink when I wasn’t around due to sports or other retreats. It sucked but at the end of the day, I didn’t care as long as she didn’t get caught. We did have to get Res Life involved again to mediate between us because she didn’t care for my stuff and I would get annoyed at that. But overall we were okay roommates, but way better friends.

Oh! Nicole also apparently came out to me the year before but I hadn’t remembered. I was the first person she came out to, as we had been watching Lady Gaga perform at an awards show and apparently she told me that she would date someone like Lady Gaga. Kinsley and I loved Nicole’s new girlfriend instantly and while I lost all of them as friends when Kinsley and I had a massive falling out, I’m super fond of Nicole and her GF still. Nicole and I didn’t room together again the next year because she wanted to room with her GF and we both knew we were much better friends than roomies.

Junior Roommate #1 – The Slob

This roommate was my junior year roommate, I’ll call her “Gina”. Gina was Molly’s friend and I also knew her from SGA and being super involved on campus like I was. Gina had stressed to me before we agreed to room together that she wanted me to make an effort to be tidy. I said I would and that was that! Well, as her nickname suggests, I wasn’t the issue.

So Gina was right away very passive aggressive about me being clean. I did try and I was pretty good since I was rarely at the apartment (we lived off campus in college apartments). Gina, being a senior, had quit a lot of her groups on campus to try other stuff and she joined a rugby team in the city. A few weeks in, she broke her leg playing. Well, this turned into her claiming she couldn’t stand long enough to do dishes, which was a problem because I was the only one who brought dishes! She would dirty everything up when cooking and then leave the dishes because she couldn’t stand long enough to do them, even though she could stand long enough to cook. I would be so frustrated because I worked on campus, was still in a ton of clubs (I’d quit XC and track by this point though), and got a job off campus.

Eventually I put my dishes away because I never used them because they were always dirty. Yeah, I’m also very passive aggressive. Gina got annoyed because she said she used them and I replied “Oh I know you were going to get some so I kinda thought you had already and wouldn’t mind. I honestly don’t use them so I didn’t want to leave them out to clutter the kitchen and I’m sending it all home.” She did mind. Oops! We honestly did hardly ever see each other though since I was always busy but towards the end of the semester we called a truce. I don’t keep up with Gina’s life at all but I do remember after college Gina transitioned to male. I wish him nothing but the best even if we didn’t get along as roomies.

Junior Roomates #2 & 3 – The Party Girls

My next two roommates were in Spain, because I spent my next semester abroad in Barcelona! I had two roommates at the apartment we were assigned to. I’ll call them “Blaire” and “Katy”. Blaire had a room to herself and Katy shared with me, which was an issue for me because they would party and get home late which would wake me when Katy came in. But overall we all got along well.

We had unofficial guy roommates too, because our host mom’s son lived in the same building with his partner so they hosted two guys that I’ll call “Dave” and “Tom”. Tom eventually moved out so “Kyle” moved in though. I think Tom and the sons had issues getting long so he was moved out. Dave was super chill though and Kyle was really funny so we all got along. And Blaire and Tom were still pretty close after too. Sometimes I’d go to a club with everyone but mostly I stayed home while they all went out. Oh, our host mom was the one who cooked for everyone so Dave, Tom, and later Kyle would come eat with us for dinner every day.

I never really had any issues with these roommates. I think just that I thought Katy and Blaire were kind of rude to not care if I was woken up by them but Blaire was super messy so her room was too much of a disaster for anyone to hang out in and our host mom didn’t like it if we hung out in her side of the apartment. Honestly, the host mom was the most annoying out of anyone because she was super judgmental of us. She thought Blaire went out too much, Katy was too quiet, and I was too independent. I think she also thought Tom was rude but he left so no issues there. And Dave was too into smoking. I think Kyle was the only one she actually liked. I do follow them on social media and we all like each other’s posts from time to time even though I don’t talk to them anymore.

Senior Roommate – The Nice One!

This was the best roommate. I’ll call her “Ella”. Ella was a random assignment as I didn’t care to try to find anyone. I figured all my roommates would suck anyway so I didn’t care who I ended up with. Due to Gina being messy, I told Ella that we shouldn’t share anything and each bring our own stuff. At this point I had realized that I could graduate a semester early, so I just wanted to be done with school and not worry about roommate drama again. Honestly, I would say this time around I was the bad roommate because I automatically shut her down when she reached out before the school year started.

Well, we moved in and I wasn’t mean to her, but also wasn’t super friendly. I didn’t know Ella at all, and honestly I was so over roomie issues that I didn’t really care to. I had an internship, my off campus job, extra classes, and was just over it! Again though, I wasn’t mean to Ella or anything but I think she was surprised how I didn’t really seem eager to get to know her. One night, however, we both had some wine and got to know each other more and once I told her all my roomie drama, she realized why I was so distant. She admitted after my FB message before the semester started that she was confused why I didn’t want to share anything and reached out to a mutual friend we had. They were the same major and I was in the same sustainability group on campus with that friend. The friend had told Ella I was super nice and Ella was so confused because I didn’t come across that way at all! But once I told her everything she realized why I hadn’t wanted to even share a microwave.

Turns out, Ella was the kindest roommate I ever had in college and we got along great! After we talked we did share stuff and we put stuff away that didn’t need to be doubled and I even took some extra stuff home. We laughed about it later as I was moving out because she said it was funny that I had been so hesitant to give her a chance and we got along great. Honestly, she was right and I learned a valuable lesson in giving everyone a fair chance.

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So those are all my college roommates! I had so many ups and downs with them! Even if they sucked, I learned a lot from each and every one of them though. And it’s so long ago now that I look back and thing “I made a big deal over that?” Sure, some of them were in need of escalation but overall, I think that I had a lot of growing up to do too, just as they all did. We were only young college kids after all! But I do think I had more than my fair share of bad roommates, so let me know if you had any bad ones too. Ah the memories!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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