Going into college, I believed that I would have the same roommate for all four years. I thought we would be best friends who would do everything together. Being naive, I thought my relationship with my roommate would be something out of a movie. Unfortunately, I learned pretty fast that my fantasy wasn't going to be the reality. I chose my first roommate after meeting her at an event held at Cabrini. We immediately hit it off and decided we were going to be roommates that day. We were so excited and had everything planned out from who was bringing what to our color scheme. In the beginning, everything between us was perfect. We got along and we were both happy. Then as the weeks continued, it became obvious to the both of us that we weren't meant to be roommates. She is a very organized person who needed everything in its place while I'm disorganized and I can function in a mess. We were polar opposites and the tension came to a head when we got into a huge argument one night that ended with us screaming at each other. We went to Res Life the next day and had a conversation about what happened. We both gave the same story to the director of Res Life and we all agreed that we weren't meant to be roommates. She volunteered to move out since I was in a Living and Learning Community and was kind of "stuck" in that room. I truly believe that this girl is a great person who will be successful and I wish her nothing but the best. It wasn't until Res Life gave me a new roommate who was the polar opposite of my first one.
This girl was originally a commuter who decided to live on campus. Since I had an extra bed, she occupied it. She seemed nice at first and I thought we would get along fine until she asked this bombshell - "Do you drink and/or smoke?" I personally don't find partying "fun" and I was never the party girl type but I don't care if someone does find partying fun. When I told her no, she said "oh okay". Shortly after she moved in, she began smoking pot in the room and the smell made me feel sick - giving me headaches and making me feel dizzy. One night when she was going out to get drunk, she turned to me and said "I feel bad that you don't drink." I was shocked and was left speechless because I never expected someone to say that to me. I wanted to say that I felt bad that she felt the need to drink every single day to have fun. She would come back at 2 in the morning and turn on the lights while I was sleeping and would wake me up. She once woke me up at 3:30 in the morning on a day where I had an 8:30 class to ask if she could borrow my phone to text her friend because she left her phone in his car. I had enough and I contacted res life telling them about the entire situation and we had separate meetings with them. We gave our sides of the story and she volunteered to move out. Part of the reason why I was scared to speak up was because I didn't want to be a snitch and rat her out for doing something illegal and get her (and her drug dealer) in trouble. I didn't want to be known as the girl who got her roommate in trouble for smoking pot.
Even though I had two roommates that weren't the right match for me, they both taught me valuable lessons for the future. My extremely organized roommate taught me how to be a little more organized when living with a roommate and that some people don't like messy rooms. My stoner roommate taught me that I shouldn't be afraid to speak up when something isn't right or when I feel uncomfortable. Living with another person isn't fun at times but you got to make compromises. The most important thing that I learned from having a bad roommate situation is that I learned how to be a better roommate, friend, and person. Like the Beatles say "Take a sad song and make it better," this experience has made me realize that I can make a crappy situation into a good one.
