One of the biggest sources for pre-college nightmares is the prospect of having a roommate. For many, freshman year is the first time in their lives they ever have to share their bedroom with another person. It’s often an awkward experience living with a stranger, but 9 times out of 10 it works out just fine. The following are some stories of the other 10%: the weird, the bad, and the ugly.
“My first roommate in college always reeked because she didn’t bathe, and of course, she was always in the room because she skipped class regularly. She spent all day on Facebook and invited over sketchy guys she met online. She let the dishes sit in the sink for a month without washing them, forcing me to eventually just throw them out. Once, she came home drunk, peed in my trash can, and then left her pee-soaked jeans on the floor for me to step on in the middle of the night. She made me want to quit school!”
“When I was at sleep away camp, I used to have to get up around the same time every night to go to the bathroom. While I was in the bathroom, my bunk mate, Sarah, would crawl into my bed and pretend to be asleep. If I tried to get her to move, she would bite my hand and say her name was Maggie, and why did I keep calling her Sarah? This was creepy in the middle of the night, and just plain weird.”
“My first roommate was probably the most insane person I’ve ever lived with in my life. She only liked rules when they worked in her benefit those especially pertaining to quiet hours. She liked when everyone was quiet when she was sleeping, but that did not stop her from shouting at her boyfriend on Skype from 3am until 5 or 6 in the morning. She would also go out without her phone to leave us guessing as to her whereabouts or whether she would come home alive. One time, she brought home a man to sleep with – she filmed herself having relations with this man to send to her boyfriend back home. I had to hear all about it the next day, since I couldn’t sleep in my bedroom that night.”
“He seemed really normal and friendly at first and we got along pretty well. We both talked about how we wanted to get involved at school and we’d agreed we should go to a few clubs together. So, when he invited me to go to the “Christian Club Barbeque” the first Friday night I was more than happy to attend. I thought it was odd how there were no crosses or bibles or any Catholic symbols, but I decided to ignore it since I had a great time and met lots of nice people. So I decided to go to the next official meeting of the club. At this first meeting, I found it very odd how they talked about how Jesus and Jehovah. I’d never heard of Jehovah before, and I’d gone to Sunday School for years. A day or two later I realized this was clearly not a Christian Club, but a club of Jehovah’s Witnesses. I decided I’d avoid the club, and I spent the rest of the semester going to an imaginary “Chess Club” every time my roommate tried to bring me back to the “Christian Club.””
“I was so excited to get a roommate from China. We’d be able to teach each other all about each other’s culture. He had different intentions. His first words to me were “Do you like soccer?” and I answered that I’d played a little before. He proceeded to explain to me his love for soccer. He then kept explaining his love for soccer to me for the entire semester. Don’t get me wrong, I love soccer, but he talked about it 24/7. I think I heard maybe one story about his family, but I heard at least 500 explanations of why Liverpool was screwed this year. Needless to say, I didn’t learn much about Chinese Culture.”
“My first time having roommates and there were seven us…great. Living with six other girls however was not the nightmare I believed it would be. Six of us got along great and actually liked each other for the most part. But there was one person sized issue we needed to take care of. The 7th Roommate. If her incessant tapping, night escapades of wandering in and out of the room hours at a time, and hoarding of half-eaten food and other people’s stuff wasn’t bad enough, we were all pretty sure she was certifiable. A week in and things were only getting worse, one day wasn’t she walked into our room holding a sledgehammer, claiming it was to crush up meds so she wouldn’t gag. When asked what type of pill she was on that needed a sledgehammer to crush, she proceeded to then tell us how she has a bad case of bipolar disorder along with many other strange quirks. To say the next three weeks of living with her was hell, is an understatement. But the final straw came when she became offended with my roommates and I refused to debate with her on whether we should get a pet hamster for a room. After that we all, including the infamous 7th roommate, came to the conclusion that maybe our room was not the best fit for her and that it was best for both parties if she moved out.”
“My cousin had been rooming with the same guy for three years. They were best friends. Then one night, my cousin was woken up to his roommate coming home drunk with another person. His roommate apparently didn’t know that he was there. Well, shenanigans began and my cousin laid there mortified. He pulled the pillow over his head and stayed there until he realized that his roommate had brought another guy home. In the three years he had known his roommate he didn’t know his roommate was gay. Great way to find out, huh?”
