To anybody who hated their freshman college roommate,

Before college even began, you heard all of the roommate horror stories. Your mom roomed with her best friend, and they became mortal enemies by the year's end. Your cousin roomed with someone totally random; he decided to switch rooms three weeks in because his roommate was a kleptomaniac. Your friend's friend got kicked out of school because her suitemates threw a party without telling her. No matter how you approached the housing process for your freshman year, there seemed to be no chance you would find yourself in a pleasant experience. Regardless, you filled out your roommate search wizard, albeit the fact that it seemed oddly analogous to a dating website profile.

As your freshman year begins, you meet your new roommate, and all seems well. You share mutual interests, taste in music, and similar class schedules. You may even be working on the same major! All of the lessons on problem-solving and compromise that have been indoctrinated into your brain slowly lose relevance as it seems you have found your soul(room)mate.

And then, it happens.

Slowly, your newfound best friend turns into the single worst human you've had the misfortune of meeting. Their sleep schedule begins to resemble that of an erratic racoon. Their hours are spent chatting with hometown friends while binge-playing League of Legends at ungodly hours of the morning. They begin to steal your clothes, your food, your toothpaste, and God-only-knows what else. They begin to party five of the seven days of the week, just to return to your room under new and various states of intoxication. Your once-promising friend has turned into the human equivalent of washing a bouquet of spoons in a sink.

Worse? Your high school friends are constantly posting how much they love their roommate. You are seeing declarations of friendship between new friends, and all of them began with a simple random room assignment. You feel disenfranchised, and rightfully so. How could you have been so unlucky as to experience such a horrific housing situation? Why has humanity decided to fail you in particular?

As a matter of fact, you are not the only one who was stuck in such an awful predicament. Many first-year students have fallen victim to roommates who use a facade of friendliness and understanding to mask the true, horrible person they can be (or, at the very least, are only horrible to live with).

Although it may seem as if you were given the raw end of the deal, you've received a benefit that's unique to you and your fellow survivors. Your peers may have a new contributing member to their college social circle, but you, my friend, have stories abound. You alone can tell of how you lived with a total stranger who wouldn't let you wear shoes in the room. In the future, you can tell your kids about how you survived six consecutive nights of your roommate giving inebriated political rants to himself. Your tales of a psychotic roommate who would leave water under your bed in hopes that you'd slip will absolutely kill at parties. You may not know it, but living with the love child of the line at the DMV and Satan himself is one of the best things that has ever happened to you.

Just remember, in case you ever feel left out, that you have received more interesting stories and experiences from a horrible roommate than you would with a tolerable one. On top of that, you've been given the opportunity to learn many lessons in compromise and patience (many, many lessons). If that doesn't help, however, just take comfort in the fact that you may never see your freshman roommate again.

Congratulations on making it out alive!