In light of an upcoming semester, and those inevitable new roommate situations that come along with new dorms and apartments, I thought I would share the knowledge I've gleaned over these past four semesters and summer. I hope that by reading this entry everyones' uneasy feelings, questions, and overall awkwardness will simply vanish and be replaced by excitement and love for the person with whom you share a room. So without further ado...
- It's vital that you wear pants at all times. If you are a normal person who likes to lounge in comfort, this will be against your human nature, however, it's in your best interest. For instance, you never know when your roommate is going to bring over his or her entire family unannounced while you are laying pantless in bed. If you were wearing pants, you would naturally be able to get out of bed and converse, thus diminishing the "laziest-person-ever" image that you are portraying effortlessly.
- Communication is key, especially when it comes to decorating. For instance, if you come up with the absolutely brilliant idea to hang an elephant mural on the entire wall that y'all have agreed is yours to decorate, you may want to ask first. Without this simple conversation, you run the risk of your roommate putting up some liberal homemade hippy poster as a counteract.
- If you have a celebrity crush, preferably Justin Bieber, or some other small precious tween celeb, it's important for y'all's relationship to plaster your room with his posters etc. Placing one in the bathroom is absolutely vital, it will freak your visitors out and give y'all something to laugh about.
- When going out on the town, aka cheap places like Freebirds and Orange Cup, it's important that between the two of you the manager, or another full time employee has a crush on at least one of you. This will guarantee free chips and queso with your meal or maybe some extra strawberries and yogurt chips on your froyo. Though those around you may come to the conclusion that y'all are actually dating these employees, you and your roommate know the truth and that will be something special y'all can laugh and joke about forever.
- It's always nice to know when to expect your roommate back if you are chillin' in the room by yourself. A good way to do this is if you and your roommate post your daily schedules somewhere like the door, so if one of y'all is curious as to the other's whereabouts, you can simply look at the schedule rather than run the risk of texting them and embarrassing them when their phone goes off in class. When y'all are both in the room and you are about the leave your roommate may ask, "where are you going?" Of course, you are thinking "class, the same place I've been going at this exact time for the past three months." But rather than make a snarky comment, you can simply say "check the schedule."
- If this paper schedule just isn't meeting your needs, you should both invest in Foursquare, a free Iphone application. In this case, your phone will be constantly bombarded with the location of your roommate to the point where you may feel like a stalker or a cop, but at least you will know where they are, when they might be back, etc.
I hope these few pieces of advice help you in your transition from room to room, roommate to roommate.
