Leaving for college is already scary. Then add living with strangers to your list of stressful things about being a freshman in college, and all of a sudden you are looking for the next train or plane to take you back home ASAP. Everyone has a different experience with their freshmen year roommates. Some people room with people they are already friends with, others find people on Facebook or Instagram that seem similar to them. The brave ones go random, or, in my case, the lazy ones go random.

In the spring of senior year I couldn't be bothered with going through the process of looking through people's social media profiles to find someone who seemed like I could be friends with. Not to mention that the whole process of using social media seemed so silly to me because you don't actually know what a person is really like through social media. Just because they have artsy pictures on a beach just like you does not necessarily mean they are going to be a good roommate. So, I went the other extreme. I went completely random.

I sent in my application for housing and told myself that everything would be fine, as long as I didn't get put in a triple. I guess you know what happened. In late July I checked my new university email. I was going to have not one but two roommates. I have two sisters, but growing up I have always had my own room. The idea of sharing a room with one person was already very intimidating. The thought of sharing a cramped college dorm room with two other girls was pretty frightening. Looking up my roommates on social media did not help much. Neither of them had much on social media, so I knew very little going into moving day.

I arrived at college and reluctantly took the top bunk. Two days. That's how long it took before my roommates and I clicked. Within no time we were exploring campus at night together, making a collaborative playlist of all our favorite music, buying milkshakes at midnight, and playing basketball until all hours of the night. I know this definitely does not happen for everyone, and I feel so lucky that my best friends in college ended up being the two people I was randomly assigned to for rooming. The three of us are definitely not the same. In fact, we are all very different, but that does not stop us from laughing so hard we can hardly breathe or dancing around our dorm.

I am not telling you all of this to make you think this is normal. It probably is not normal. Most people get along with their roommates but that is about it and that is totally fine! I tell you this because I had no expectations. I did not think I would be friends with my roommates. I did not even know if we would get along. I decided to be 100% myself with these new strangers who I had to share a space with it, and they were 100% themselves in return. No one pretended to be anything they weren't. No one tried to impress the others. I went random for my freshmen year roommates, and I do not regret it- not one bit.