Heading into college, you're going to have a roommate. Whether you've had your own room your whole life (like me) or shared with siblings and pets, it's going to be an adjustment. If you're lucky enough to choose your roommate and you get along, you're in the minority. For the rest of us who had random roommates and only had a survey to decide our fate, it was roommate roulette.
The Good
Sometimes, random roommates do work out. One of my best friends had a random roommate our freshman year of college and they got along extremely well. You'll see girls you went to high school with post pictures with new roommates and claim they're now best friends for life. You could find your person, cause you know, fate.
You'll have nightly sleepovers, cry over ice cream when need be and have a friend to dress up and go out with. Your living environment would be someplace you want to hangout in. Maybe your room will become "the room" to hang out in because you two are such awesome roommates.It happens. Maybe it'll happen to you. It didn't happen to me.
The Bad
I got a completely random roommate freshman year. I didn't even get to fill out a form because the roommate I signed up with couldn't attend, at the last minute. So I hoped for the best, but what I got was the most uncomfortable situation of my life. There are many types of bad roommates you could have: the passive aggressive roommate who makes you afraid of changing anything in the room, the steal your stuff without asking roommate, or even the one who kicks you out so she can have a boy over.
The type of roommate I had: awkward. Despite effort on my part, the only time she talked to me was on move-in day. After that I was lucky if I was greeted with a grunt. The silence between us was deafening. Not even her mom would say hi to me when she visited. It was just odd. My friends were scared to knock on my door in case she answered. They'd write messages on my door's whiteboard that I never saw because my roommate would erase them. It was bad.
It's obvious my roommate situation didn't work out. I didn't become best friends with her and we never hung out. My situation was uncomfortable, but it could have been a lot worse. She could have been downright mean or worse, steal my food.
Although I had no desire to play the random roommate game again, I ended up being assigned a random roommate for my apartment after two months of living alone. So far, it's going great and she actually talks to me. Maybe this time, I'll get lucky.