Why Can't We Be Friends?

What’s the weirdest thing about the first year of college? If you answered “having a roommate,” then you agree with me, (sorry to the other contenders, such as eating in dining halls, partying on weeknights and being in class only 30 percent as often as you were in high school). Sure, some first years live in singles, but they’re the exception that proves the rule: Only in college is having your own room suddenly unusual.

Many of my classmates have always had their own room at home, while others still share a bedroom with a sibling or two. I shared with my older brother until late elementary school, when we went our separate ways. Each night, when the lights went out, we would discuss our Neopets (characters in an online game) and wage imaginary battles (“I use a fire spell!” “But my ice wall counters that!” “Nuh uh!”) between our bunk beds. I have yet to hear of a pair of college roommates that interact like that.

My roommate and I are, in many ways, polar opposites. I’m the sensitive type, ready to open up my heart at a moment’s notice. He’d usually rather open up a beer, and has the same number of emotions in a week that I might have in an hour. But when a J. Cole song comes on or we pass out for our afternoon naps, you might swear we’re the same person.

I always have a quick blurb about my roommate holstered in the back of my mind, because “How’s your roommate?” is by far the most common question I get from friends and relatives back home. The freshman year roommate is a cultural icon, and I can see why. Your relationship with your roommate has more power to define your experience than almost anything else, and the range of possibilities is vast: From best friendship at first sight to outright disaster.

“My roommate and I are both gay latinos who love Lady Gaga,” said a sophomore friend of mine. “Long story short it worked out pretty well.” Even so, he lives in a single now and says he values the increased space and privacy.

Many of the students who live on my floor have been equally lucky with their roommates. “We have each other’s backs and we both respect each other in an important way,” my friend said. “We don’t infringe on each other’s space. I trust him as much as anyone, [and] he’s so f*cking reliable.”

Commonalities seem to contribute to friendship between roommates, but factors that people pointed to even more were trust and comfort level. When one or both of those are lacking, the relationship suffers.

One first-year girl, for instance, said she likes her roommate and considers her a friend, but doesn’t always feel comfortable in their room. “We talk a lot at night, but sometimes I’m really tired,” she said. Her roommate will drone on, unaware that her captive audience would really rather go to bed or leave the room through the door she’s been inching toward for the past 20 minutes. Sometimes her roommate realizes she isn’t in the mood to talk, but she said that actually leads to more discomfort and hurt feelings.

When trust and comfort are absent entirely, communication becomes hard, too. And that’s when you get outright disaster. One of my friends did not see eye to eye with his roommate about using illegal substances in their room, and they no longer live together. “[We] just did not communicate enough about what we each wanted from the room,” he told me in a message. “His mood would always be off when I would be around … and he just wasn’t really open to talking about it.”

As I write this, my roommate just sexiled me. Maybe I deserve the revenge for snoozing my alarm clock multiple times each morning. College, man…