<p>I’m sure it’s not the worst roomate situation ever, but I had a really bad match. The only think we had in common was our taste in music. Other than that, I was creative, dedicated to my major, not exactly a mainstream sort of person, but inclined to go out and have . My roomate on the other hand was a snob, a prude, and never did any work until the last week of the semester. She was not understanding at all of the fact that I had a demanding major… and she was actually really lucky in the selection, too. Since I was an architecture major, she would have the room to herself for days at a time where I would either not come home at all or come home for an hour during the day to have a shower and a snack. She thought I was crazy to work like that, and generally thought that she was better than me because she was richer, prettier, etc. She would be yelling into the phone and down the hall on the few nights when I actually did get to come home and sleep, until four in the morning. Then she expected sympathy during finals week when she actually had to do a little work.</p>
<p>If you’re going to a small school, the surveys often ARE taken seriously…use them! The more you say, the better the match. </p>
<p>If they give you a survey, whether or not you think it’s <em>actually</em> used, TREAT it as if it is. Better safe than sorry. If you don’t really go to bed by the earliest bedtime choice, DON’T put that you do! If you like to listen to music, talk on the phone, watch TV, etc. at night or while you study, DON’T insist otherwise! Some of the worst roommate experiences I’ve heard of were due to people misjudging or misrepresenting themselves and their preferences:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>People who aren’t and have no interest in being sub-free but think that living in sub-free halls will be nicer/cleaner/healthier, etc. (but can’t respect the rules/wishes of fellow residents).</p></li>
<li><p>The many smokers who put “non-smoking” on their surveys b/c they wanted the “nicer” dorms (when there’s not necessarily any correlation), because their parents were looking at the paperwork, or whatever else. A few of these people my freshman year lived (and smoked heavily) in the newsest dorm, which happens to be where many people live for health reasons, including severe asthma…</p></li>
<li><p>The swimmer who had to go to bed at 9pm to be up for practice but put otherwise so that she didn’t get “stuck with nerds” (and yet insisted that her two roommates be silent while she slept).</p></li>
<li><p>The many, many people who fill out the surveys as they would LIKE to be rather than as they ARE. If you have room to elaborate, then describing a middle ground is fine, but a first roommate is NOT a good way to experiment with wishful thinking and self-improvement.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Juuuust some tips. A little off topic, but I had to disagree with the previous “always put the earliest bedtime” (depending on the survey, the times, yourself, and so forth…the point is, it’s not an “always.” Don’t do it if you can’t respect it in the event that your roommate really DOES go to bed at 8:30pm).</p>
<p>My first semester of Freshman year, i had a roommate from hell! It started out fine, we got along really well. Then, I found out she was crazy. One night we were out together, she got beligerantly drunk, lost her phone, blamed it on me, and tried to fight me. After that I tried to steer clear of her, but it’s hard when you share a room obviously. I honestly think this girl was nocturnal. She would stay up until at least 2 or 3 some nights, others later. I had 8am classes because of my major so usually would like to go to bed before midnight. I bought ear plugs, eye masks- you name it. Once I woke up to her reorganizing her closet at 5am. Another time, she came in so wasted around 5:30am, then came on my side of the room and started going through my stuff. When I sat up and asked her what the hell she was doing, she went on a drunken rant and told me that I was delusional and made it all up… THEN, my school wouldn’t move me for months (despite a recommendation from judicial affairs because of the fighting issue) because THEY had overbooked the freshman class. I assure you, it was a hell of a start to college! haha!</p>
<p>My roommate moved out without telling me he was moving out. I went to a gallery opening and when I came back all of his stuff was gone.</p>
<p>The thing about NYU is that they only fine for holes in the wall larger than a quarter, for some reason, and since knife holes are smaller than a quarter, we were not fined.</p>
<p>freshman year, not allowed to have singles.</p>
<p>^Nooo. You just destroyed all my hopes. Is it affordable(price comparable to paying for dorms) to rent sometype of one bedroom apartment around campus? Perhaps, a cheap hotel or inn?</p>
<p>As in…stay in a cheap hotel for your freshman year? I’m assuming that’s a joke, but I’ve read strange enough things on here that I probably shouldn’t. </p>
<p>(And you might know where the poster goes to school, but if not, then remember that that particular rule, availability of singles at ALL, and affordability/availability of off-campus housing all vary from school to school.)</p>
<p>And another bad roommate story: I had a family member at a southern state school in the 70s and one of his friends, a black student, was put in a room with the leader of the campus KKK chapter. Not the best…he has interesting (read: scary) stories…</p>
<p>i wouldn’t put the earliest time if you really don’t intend to go to bed earlier. I mean, i rarely go to bed before 3. i just don’t sleep a lot, seeing as i usually get up around 7 or 8. Why lie about it? I might be missing something, but i just don’t see the point. </p>
<p>On a humerous note, when my dad was in college he put that he smoked on his survey even though he didn’t, because he wanted to look cool. Turns out, his roommate did the same thing, and they are still best friends. heh.</p>
<p>i currently live with two roommates. one of them is cool and we get along just fine. we even go to the same church.
the other one is a bit of a problem. he’s extremely antisocial. he stopped going to class after the third week, and he thinks taking two math classes + one physics class at Cal is the easiest thing he’s ever done in his life. he thinks people who spend more time studying are ■■■■■■■ because they need more time to study the same amount of material. his sleeping times are completely random because well, he doesn’t go to class. he showers maybe twice a week and doesn’t brush his teeth before he goes to bed. he snores very loud. he always talks to his girlfriend through his webcam and it disturbs me because 1. my desk is right behind his and the webcam catches what i’m doing, making his girlfriend see me doing stuff, 2. they talk about calculus most of the time. he never closes the curtain before going to sleep (my room is on the east side so the sun hits the room in the morning and it gets really hot.) he never eats with anyone and just kinda grunts when people say hi as if they’re annoying him by saying hi.
there’s lots more to write about but i won’t do that cuz i probably do things that annoy him.</p>
<p>you need to definitely set ground rools for friends who are promiscuous, ok. like, i think being too open with my roommate is now kind of bad cause there are some personal issues that are done with me in the room… um, just try to be friends with your roommate but maybe not like SUPER good friends</p>
<p>I know at USC they just place you randomly with people. Two of my roommates are in fraternaties and one of them is a complete recluse/nerd who plays war craft 3 alll day. The weird thing is, you would expect my frat-roommates to be the jerks in my apartment, but it’s actually the nerd who ****es us off the most (he makes very big messes when cooking, never takes out the trash, and stomps on the couch with his dirty shoes a la rick james on chappelle’s show).</p>
<p>my roommate and i had a fight and it ended with her saying that we were to differnet and that we could never be friends and how she can’t deal with me anymore. which sucks a lot</p>
<p>not college but for a camp…</p>
<p>my roommate was a goth…my stuff was yellow with hues of bright orange and gold…my clothing was bright…and i wake up super happy…she HATED me…she was all…“you burn my eyes…”…“you make me want to throw you out the window every time you say good morning”…</p>
<p>So I resolved not to speak to her. Then she went even more emo and was all "what’s wrong iwht me"blahablah…and when i’d talk to her she’d complain</p>
<p>one day…she died my clothing BLACK. I hate black. The only black clothing I own is formal wear, and maybe a jacket and turtleneck.</p>
<p>she died YOUR clothing? that’s crossing a few too many lines when it comes to roommates. hopefully you got out of there.</p>
<p>my roommates aren’t great but we aren’t at each others throats either. we’re in a triple, with a small single and a double and the one in the single stays in there and doesn’t talk to us much. the girl i share the double with i talk to quite a bit but we’re just so different. she’s obsessed with music and is emo, which drives me crazy but she’s not over the top emo, so i can deal with it. and she leaves the lights on when she works on the computer late at night and has never started a paper before 1:00 in the morning but luckily i’m a hard sleeper and can deal with it. but luckily i love the other girls on my floor and i can go to their rooms when my roommates drive me insane.</p>
<p>thank god for a summer only (2 months):
2 triple rooms connected by a very small common space.
all 5 of the girls were very different from me politically which is fine, everyone has their own opinion ok, but they forced their opinion on me. they also forced their religion on everyone (and im no atheist…). each girl had a hair straightener, a curling iron, and at least one hair dryer. they caused us to lose our electricty several times by having too many of this appliances running at one time. one day the 5 of them went somewhere together without me and one girl conveniently accused me of stealing money from her. the RA believed her. and they would stay up shreiking until 3 am when we had class very early in the mornings.</p>
<p>ugh. all of them- soooo immature!</p>
<p>You know what would be hilarious. If 2 roomates were both posting in this thread lol…</p>
<p>I was lucky to get a good roomate. He and I were the only other people in our building who studied. My other suitemates were a bit antisocial (they came from the same high school so were all friends) and played computer games 24/7 so sometimes they got a little loud. None of us were promiscuous. We all got along really well too and we’re still really good friends (which is the most important part).</p>
<p>My roommate last year had sex in my bed and her boyfriend was over all the time. This eventually drove me to the point where I told her I didn’t want him there over night and she ended up staying with him for the rest of the semester. My roommates this year are great, we’re all a little bit different, and they knew each other before, but we’re able to be good friends. This year there was no form involved and last year I filled out the form, I’m guessing everything was random last year too.</p>
<p>I’ve posted this before…but here’s my story of my first semester freshman year…</p>
<p>Our housing application had I believe 3 questions on it; do you smoke (or do you care to live with a smoker)?, what kind of music do you listen to? (with very broad categories such as ‘rock’), do you go to bed early or late?</p>
<p>Roommate #1:</p>
<p>I got placed with this girl who didn’t put on her application that she smoked (since she didn’t want her parents to know she smoked, though they did) and was a party animal who went out to the bars until 2-3am everyday (not just weekends, yes, she was a freshman…one of those people that is very hard to tell their age). She also liked the room to be ARTIC cold, colder than my parents even keep their house (which is ~65F). She would yell at me for typing on my computer before 10am everyday. We were pretty much incompatible so I requested a room chage after a month since I was in a dorm far away from most of my friends.</p>
<p>Roommate #2:</p>
<p>I then was placed with a girl who’s roommate had never shown up that year. Well, she assumed I was racist because I went to a predominately white and asian high school (supposedly you have to go to a nearly all african american high school to not be racist these days…). She wouldn’t let me plug in my dorm tv as she had a full-size tv already plugged in and told me she wouldn’t let me watch anything I wanted unless I got a splitter for my tv. The tv was on nearly constantly on either BET or Cartoon Network. She blamed ME for her failing grades despite the fact she would ‘study’ under her covers with her biology book open while watching tv and half asleep (or sometimes fully asleep). She had her boyfriend over every weekend night to have sex/sleep with all night. I had just started seeing my then boyfriend (now fiance) and she would expect me to spend every weekend night in his single just so she could have the room to herself (to which I said no, since I didn’t want to sleep two to a twin bed, not my cup of tea). She would come back from church every Sunday morning with her boyfriend and have sex (ummm…ok…atonement doesn’t work that way…). She would then blame me for being racist again because I stayed away from the dorm room a lot. Well, that couldn’t be because everytime I tried to get into my room during the day (at random times) there was a note on the door saying that her boyfriend was in there? Don’t think not wanting to see you have sex is racist, I don’t want to see anyone having sex. </p>
<p>The kicker came one night when I was trying to drown out the loud music from the underage bar below the dorm with the sleep function on my alarm clock. She comes in and tells me to turn on my music and that I was asleep. I was wide awake and said ‘no I’m awake, the music will be off in 60 minutes or less and it’s quieter than the music outside’. She again insists I’m asleep and I should turn off my radio. Well, this went on for a few minutes and then she told to me to turn my radio off that moment or she’d ‘punch my face in’. </p>
<p>Well, that wasn’t acceptable, so I went to the RA to set up a meeting to talk about my roommate. So a meeting was set up between the three of us and we both got to tell our sides of the story. The RA told us that we could work out our differences and that was about it, nothing else, no strategies, no compromises made. </p>
<p>I seriously told her that I thought she should have a single, since that’s what she wanted. All she did was ***** and complain that I was there every night and not there during the day…making me racist? heaven forbid…classes and sleep…</p>
<p>Luckily I got my wish…she moved out after the first semester and I had the second semester to myself in the double (the girl that was supposed to move in opted for an apartment off-campus). I took my experiences as an omen that I was supposed to live in a single the next year (despite an offer from a good friend for a suite). </p>
<p>I hear that roommate ended up getting herself pregnant (to another guy, the boyfriend broke up with her that year) and dropping out of school.</p>
<p>EDIT: FYI this occurred 6 years ago…see how traumatizing it was…I remember it this clearly still…</p>