Last year, I remember stressing about who my future roommate would be. Once I committed to a university, I entered a Class of 2021 Facebook group, where pictures of random girls bombarded me. They were all looking for a roommate, and their list of requirements included: someone who's chill, likes to watch movies and stay in, yet likes to have fun and go out, but takes their school work very seriously. After noticing every single post was essentially the same thing, I decided that I wanted to go random in order to find my roommate.
Naturally, I was stressed to find my roommate. I wondered what kind of person they were and more importantly if our personalities would match. At the end of July, I received an email with my housing assignment for my freshman year of college. After reading the email, I immediately reached out to my roommate, recognizing her name from the larger group chat. After communicating, our personalities perfectly meshed, and suddenly, I was not so anxious anymore.
On move-in day, I did not know that I had met one of my best friends. Instead, I met my roommate. She was nice, just as she was in our online conversations, but we were still awkward freshmen who were still transitioning to living hundreds of miles away from home. On our first night in college, we stayed up till midnight in this deep, philosophical conversation, and it was at that moment that I knew that I could not have been more perfectly matched.
Throughout the year, my roommate was always there for me in times of need. She was usually the first person I would see in the morning and the last person I would see at night. The deep conversations have not ended since our first night in college. Instead, these conversations have progressed our friendship, allowing us to open up to each other, and I feel like I have known my roommate for so much longer than half a year based on how well she knows me.
Despite our differences, we complement each other in so many amazing ways. Our differences, from our favorite TV shows to our majors and our hometowns from different parts of the country, make us the amazing duo that we are. With these differences, we teach each other new things every day, such as things we learn in class to fun facts about our hometowns.
The only thing that I have learned about living with someone from Chicago is my roommate's strong Chicago accent. There are times when I have to stop her mid-conversation to hear her distinct pronunciation of certain words, especially "commercial", "Chicago", and "water". Also, the only thing we strongly disagree on is our pizza opinions, and it is a conversation we have all too frequently. Our dispute about who has the better pizza: New York or Chicago has only motivated us to visit each other's cities. While my roommate has made multiple trips to New York this year with me by her side, I cannot wait to have my first Chicago deep dish pizza with her alongside me.
My friendship with my roommate has eased my transition to college, and it has guaranteed me a wonderful friend and another year of rooming together next year. I would not want to do it with anyone else.