These are the top five reasons why my decision to move out of my freshman dorm building and room was one of the best choices I made during my first semester in college:
1. First and foremost, privacy!
There is no feeling greater than knowing you are returning to a room where you can drop your bags, change into already worn pj’s and flop onto your bed to take a nap without having to make extraneous conversation. Plus, there is no questioning who is going to be in the room when you return to it or the possibility of having to put up with your roommate’s friends talking while you’re studying or using your stuff. And perhaps most importantly, changing doesn’t require a weird series of shimmying and hopping around beside your wardrobe so you don’t accidentally flash someone.
2. I don't have to worry about someone else's attitude and moods
Living with a roommate, even if they are someone you chose and wasn’t randomly assigned to you, can be difficult. You quickly are shoved into learning how to live with someone you may have only minimally texted with for a few weeks before move-in, and probably aren’t prepared to deal with the full force of their personality, habits, quirks, comments, and lifestyle choices. And there is no win in forcing yourself to continue rooming with someone you just do not connect with or get along with.
3. Setting alarms that go off at 5 in the morning only disturb the person setting them
No one enjoys waking up to the sounds of their roommate’s alarm blaring at disrespectfully early hours of the morning just as no one wants to set alarms that early which will wake their roommate who doesn’t have a class for another couple hours. I can sleep in peace knowing my twenty (seriously) alarms going off over the course of two hours will only wake me and not some other poor soul - and vice versa.
4. I can spread out and feel like I have the space to breathe and really make the room I'm living in my own
Living by one’s self-means taking up all the space you want and not having to worry about your stuff creeping over to someone else’s side of the room or their stuff being carelessly strewn about on your side.
5. I can play my own music, dance like a fool, eat ice-cream while watching Netflix at 2 in the morning, and not have to tiptoe around another person
This one is pretty self-explanatory: I can do whatever I wish in my room and not disturb someone else. I don’t have to tiptoe about a roommate’s schedule or care if I am being too loud or watching a show without earbuds in. Really, it’s the simple pleasures like these and finally being able to settle into a peaceful and quiet room at the end of a long day and know I am free to do what I wish and be as weird as I want.
Overall, I know that people always blab about how learning to live with a roommate is a skill in learning how to compromise and adapt to people with different personalities, but honestly, I grew up with a sister only a year older who I learned to live with and be conscientious of – I don’t need to share a 15 by 20 square foot cubicle with a random human to understand or be able to apply these skills and concepts, especially if in doing so the situation only makes me more miserable. So let me raise a glass (of cider) to my newfound freedom, and let me live in peace in my single.
