Being a germaphobe has its perks. We tend to be alert, detail-oriented, and very, very clean. But being a germaphobe in college is a totally different story.
From the classrooms to the dining halls, the residence halls to public transportation, germs are inescapable. We try to fight them with Lysol, hand sanitizer, vitamin C, and anything else we can find to protect us from the dreaded sickness. It’s a struggle, man.
Here are 12 of our daily struggles as young germaphobes...
1. Communal Living SUCKS.
Sharing your germs with everyone else’s germs in close quarters is the most unideal setting for us germaphobes. You’ll inevitably spend most of your time panicking about all the germs or trying to disinfect all of them.
2. When someone on your hall is sick, you desperately avoid it at all costs.
Close quarters in dorm rooms is the worst place to be when your roommate or even anyone on your hall catches a bug.
3. You can’t go to bed without showering.
...quite inconvenient. But you go a lot of places and come into contact with a lot of germs throughout the day. You don’t want to get all of the day's ick on your nice clean sheets, now do you?
4. Nobody else can touch your bed…period.
The comforter is acceptable, but once you touch my sheets, it is all downhill from there, friend.
5. Hand Sanitizer and disinfecting wipes are your best friends.
They are necessities, especially when you share a room with another person (or people). Your room, your stuff, and your hands gotta be clean in order for you to live comfortably.
6. Disinfecting your phone at least every week.
Do you realize how many germs exist on those things? A bunch. Just think about it.
7. Sitting in class, suddenly realizing all the sweat and germs on every desk and chair.
Gum under the desks, weird stains on top of the desks, and the chairs, oh the chairs.
8. Public Transportation.
9. Dry hands because of washing them a hundred times a day.
I wash my hands after I literally do anything. Naturally, my hands are almost always dry, cracking, or even bleeding.
10. When someone uses their hands to cover their mouths when sneezing or coughing.
Didn’t anyone tell you we use the inside of our elbows nowadays?
11. When that person decides to touch every surface in sight.
It was bad enough a minute ago. Time to break out the disinfecting wipes.
12. When you inevitably catch the sickness
Despite all the hand sanitizer and precautions, catching the bug is unfortunately, unavoidable.
Avoiding germs takes a lot of hard work. And sometimes, we fail to keep them out of our systems and eventually get sick. So, let’s break out the tissues, antibiotics, and vitamin C. The battle is far from over.