Living with 3 Other Girls

At the end of 2016, I began one of the scariest and greatest journeys of my life: I started my freshman year of college. I had been accepted to Kennesaw State University in Georgia. In fact, I was accepted into one of the selective honors programs. As fun or nerdy as that may sound, it wasn't what I was excited for. No, I was excited to not only be living outside of my mother's house but to also be living with roommates!

My college had this requirement for freshmen where we HAD to live on campus, no exceptions unless it was approved by the administration. Even then, it had to be some severe situation. So, I was playing out all the different scenarios in my head that I'm sure most people have seen on TV or in movies. You know, the ones where you get super close with all your roommates, have movie nights, make dinner together, and become lifelong friends despite all your different personalities. I knew it was probably a little unrealistic but I was DETERMINED to remain optimistic. These girls were going to make this first year the best way to start my college career, I just knew it.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Now, don't get me wrong: It's not that I had three terrible roommates. Just one. The others I barely ever saw. For the sake of privacy, I have to give these girls fake names. The first we will call Bea. At first, she was actually really cool. We are still "Facebook friends" to this day and I see occasional updates about her life. She introduced me to a few of the friends I hung out with my first year at KSU and we all had quite a bit of fun as a group. She was my first friend at the school and she was actually a pretty cool person. When she was around, she helped me through a few pretty tough times; when she was around. She moved out of the dorm about three months into the year. She still paid for the space, she was just never around.

For a little context, I'll explain how the dorm was laid out. As soon as you walked into the front door, there was the living room. The kitchen was half separated by a low counter and two rooms led off the living room from either side of the couch. Those two rooms had a shared bathroom. The washer and dryer were stored in a little nook past the kitchen (we were lucky enough to have a unit that came with those) and past that was a doorway that led to the back of the dorm. That's where my and Bea's rooms were. We also shared a bathroom but it was laid out between our two rooms with a sink in the open and the shower and toilet separated by yet another door. So, if I shut the outer door that led into the kitchen, it was like I was living all by myself in a tiny apartment with two rooms and a bathroom. Since Bea was never around, I only ever left to go to class, to get some food (either from the kitchen of the Commissary), to go out to meet a friend somewhere on campus, or to go home for the weekend (I lived about three hours away from my mom's house).

Anyways, onto the next roommate who we shall call Kate. I saw Kate about as much as I saw Bea, the only difference was that Kate stayed in her room most of the time she was in the dorm. She and my next roommate were friends from the same high school track team as far as I know. I never really talked to her except at the very end of the year, when everyone was moving out. Turns out, she was actually cool, just really quiet and private. Which I can understand since I am kind of the same way.

My last roommate, we will call Monica. Monica was the worst of the three and I'll tell you why. First, she had no respect for other people's things. Within the first few weeks of living together, she had thrown out a lot of food in the fridge. MY food. She claimed it was spoiled and I would've been okay with that had she just ASKED first or checked with me before deciding. She also used my food without asking for cooking. We had a bit of an argument about it and after that, we rarely ever talked in person and avoided each other if we could. I'm not normally a petty or confrontational person so, I just got a mini fridge and started putting my food in my room along with a lot of my other stuff that I didn't want to be "shared items."

Monica also threw a really loud party in our dorm and had alcohol there which was a HUGE no-no on campus, especially since she and a lot of the other party-goers were still underage. Luckily, I wasn't there since I was visiting my then-boyfriend for the weekend. The party got shut-down and the RA had to give her a warning about alcohol and related paraphernalia in the dorm. She STILL brought it in and left the bottles around, which I snapped pictures of in case anything else happened between us in the future (again, I'm not normally petty but this girl was working my nerves).

She also walked in on me while I was getting ready to shower. Remember how I said the back of the dorm has a door? Well, it was closed and after she walked in without knocking, it stayed locked when I was there. I had been walking around naked (since it was just me back there and my clothes were dirty anyway), so I'd say she learned a lesson about knocking. But still. She also used the counter in my bathroom to start making smoothies for her friends. At 10 PM. During midterms.

That's not EVERYTHING that's she's done but, I feel like if I keep writing, I'll just get angry about it all over again. If you guys WANT more stories, I can definitely write about them but for now, I'll say: some roommates can make your college years amazing. You won't always have the most amazing people living with you (unless you're super lucky), but you can't let the bad ones ruin those years of your life. I had some not so great experiences but I learned from it and I intend to continue being happy with my life now that they're out of it.