Once upon a time I thought all my roommates were going to be my best friends for life. Silly, I know. I guess I was wooed by ride-or-die roommates in shows like New Girl and Friends. I paid homage to those who I am still very close with here. With Sophomore year ahead of me, I confidently got an apartment with a close friend. We did everything together and we were so excited to be living together--the kind of excited where we would talk about cooking meals together and movie nights and room decor and all that. It was still months before move-in.
It's funny how quirky little tendencies can become peeves so fast. Like, "Oh! It's so cute how she finishes typing my sentence for me because she thinks I'm typing too slow." Yeah I do type a little slower. But then it happens again. And again. And it's not just typing or speed anymore. When she hears my keys jangle outside the door, she rushes to open it before I turn the lock. When she sees me prepping for my interview she tells me 'I know why you're getting rejected all the time...because you're memorizing your interview answers". When she glances at my screen and sees that I'm frantically throwing my resume at every job related to our major, she lectures me and screams, "I HATE TROPHY COLLECTORS". Everything's a competition, so she puts up a wall, but I'm always being watched from behind that wall. She knows my schedule better than I do.
I get it.
It's difficult because she went to one of the top high schools in California. It's difficult because I'm not local and she is, so she's supposed to have it more together. Because we're in the same small major and everybody is competing against one another for the same thing. But I thought we were best friends. I thought best friends supported each other and celebrated each other's strengths instead of holding them back. I thought we were supposed to go to each other with our insecurities instead of venting about each other to a mutual friend. I thought.....wrong. It's been a year of tension in the apartment and I'm ready to move on. I've tried to talk to her, even involving a mediator that we both trusted. But I can't live with someone who sees me as inferior--perhaps not intentionally--who sees me as spoiled and fragile and in need of saving.
Nevertheless, I am relieved that I experienced this with her, because without it, we would still be living a lie.
