Thursday, October 11, 2007

Roommates: My Experience

So far, the situation I have had with my roommate has been nothing short of fabulous. We didn’t know each other going into it, but we haven’t had any issues since we moved in. I think I can owe most of this to how honest and open we are with each other, along with having a strong sense of mutual respect.

I was pretty messy in high school – I tended to try on about 5 different outfits, and when I found the one I wanted the other 4 would camp out on my bedroom floor until laundry day. Amazingly enough, my habits took a turn for the better once I moved into my dorm room. The space is way too small to be messy. I’ve also noticed that my roommate and my cleanliness kind of feed off of each other; if my things start to get messy, so do hers, and if I pick up my things, so does she. Out of respect for her I keep my stuff picked up, because I know it would annoy me if her crap was constantly all over our little living space.

Another major thing to keep in mind is flexibility. My roommate and I have very different schedules, and we do really well with adjusting ourselves to respect each other. I tend to have more homework than she does, so if she’s just hanging out and watching TV while I’m trying to study, she’s very courteous and goes next door to watch her show with some of our friends. Also, if I know she has an early class the next morning, I’ll either go to bed early with her or leave the room to continue studying when she wants to go to bed.

We also have pretty good ‘rules’ about visitors, if you can call them rules. I have a boyfriend that goes to another school, and that could potentially cause issues with a roommate if you aren’t careful. However, I try to not have him come and visit during the week, so that it won’t distract my roommate (or me) from our studies. We are very conscious of each other’s privacy – I’m always willing to leave the room if she needs me to, and she’s always willing to do the same for me – and on the other hand we never expect each other to leave at unnecessary times for unnecessary reasons….

One last bit: my roommate and I get along fantastically; however, we don't try to be each other's best friend. It's inevitable that it will get really old really fast if you try to be best friends with the person you live with. I think we both understand this and don't feel the need to spend every minute outside of our room together when we already spend plenty of time together in our cozy little home...

2 comments:

lowdiver said...

My roomate and I are on completely different schedules so we rarely see each other. My roommate also doesn't usually sleep in the dorm. I have no clue where he goes, but he always comes back so I just don't worry about it anymore. Since we don't usually end up in the same room together very often, when we are both free on weekends we usually do hang out together outside of the dorm. Who would want to be stuffed inside a dorm room for any long amount of time anyway.

The documentor said...

I have the same situation with my roommate. We aren't best friends but we get along really well. The best part is that we are both really messy so it works out.