One of the most memorable experiences you’ll have in college and life is living with roommates.

Your roommate experiences can range from awkward to amazing and to a hellish nightmare. All of my roommate experiences have fallen into each one of those categories. I’m going to touch on each one for you so you can get an inside glimpse of the potential situations that can arise each time your name is on a lease with someone else.

Roommate Pranks
One of my roommates put posters on my bedroom walls of my least favorite band. So I sought revenge by wrapping her room in ribbon and laid the posters on top.
Freshman Year
If you read my first post, then you know about Ari, Anna, and our other roommate, Alana. In the beginning, we had a decent relationship and dynamic in the apartment. We went on roommate outings to Target, Walmart, Taco Bell, downtown…the usual places. We had our ups and downs and relationships slightly shifted at times; but then, at some point, things drastically shifted. Anna and Ari didn’t have the best relationship, Alana usually locked herself in her room with a friend and her music blaring, and I chose sides a lot between Anna and Ari. One of my tragic personality flaws is that I grow tired of people if I spend all my time with them, and I find myself becoming annoyed. The circumstances of me not having friends besides my roommates exponentially magnified this flaw. I hated choosing sides when problems came up, but it was either choose sides or sit in my room and not have anyone to talk to, or at least that’s how I viewed it at the time. After the hamster incident, we had to move apartments because of water damage. Ari, Anna, and I stuck together and Alana moved in with someone else. It was bad timing because we were uprooted during midterm Spring 2009 semester and were super busy, so it took a little bit of time to adjust to a new setting. We managed to survive until the end of the semester, though. By this time, Ari was spending most of her time with her friend Lucky and wasn’t in the apartment much. Anna and I usually spent most of our time together and the end of the semester was there before we knew it. On a scale of 1-10, I would rank the overall roommate experience 8. It could’ve better, but it could’ve been much worse, which is something I learned the next time I lived in the dorms.
Sophomore Year

An Albert Einstein poster I had on my wall during Sophomore year.
Sophomore year was a difficult time for me with no friends, a recent break up, and not knowing what I was doing with my life. On top of all this, I lived with three girls, all of whom were freshmen. They were loud, obnoxious, dramatic, and catty. All of them talked about each other and stayed up until 3 or 4 AM in the living room with more loud people and music. The situation finally hit rock bottom at one point and got messy. It involved lots of drama and changing apartments. Included in the apartment change was Krystal, my roommate’s friend who lived across the hall (I mentioned her before and said that you would definitely hear about her again). She didn’t want to be near the apartment anymore and she and I were moved to the same apartment. Krystal ended up becoming a really good friend of mine. She was dating someone in the military and she helped me get through my break up with Chris, who was a Marine. We had significant differences in our personalities and views, but we were attached at the hip. I picked up another friend my sophomore year; I connected with a girl, Annie, from my hometown. She was a year younger than me and we hadn’t had much to do with each other when we went to high school together. Since neither of us had friends, I messaged her on Facebook, and we decided to hang out. We ended up becoming really close and she was definitely became one of my closest friends. We went on adventures together and shared many laughs. It was such an awesome experience getting to know her and creating that friendship. At the end of spring semester 2010, the three of us decided to move off campus off and get an apartment together.
Sophomore Year continued
We ended up picking an apartment in Georgetown, and living off campus was both great and not so great. Annie and Krystal weren’t crazy about each other and I was stuck in the middle again. I thought I could play mediator and make things work, but I was definitely wrong. At first, things went really well. We all did everything together. If it came down to it, though, I would go out with Annie. We would ride to Statesboro to hang out with some friends or we would go on late night adventures to downtown and grab chocolate milk from Parker’s. Krystal became jealous, and looking back, I can’t say I blame her. After about 5 months of living together, the relationships had completely disintegrated and I was spending a lot of time with my new boyfriend. Things ended up getting so bad between Annie and Krystal that Krystal called the cops because Annie had thrown her broom and one of her shelves on the front patio, and then Krystal moved out. We all ended up subleasing our apartment to other girls and went our separate ways. My friendship with Krystal was over and Annie and I didn’t hang out that much. I ended up moving into a house. Overall, I would rank this experience 4 out of 10. Things definitely ended up getting pretty nasty.
Junior-Senior Year
I have only one word for my junior and senior year roommate experiences: fail. I had roommates move out in the middle of the night without telling me what they were doing. People didn’t pay their portion of the bills. And a lease was broken. I had some great times, though. And they were probably some of the best nights of my life. But after going through so much frustration and broken friendships, my parents and I decided that it would probably be best if I lived on my own. So that’s where I am now. I have no roommates besides my two cats, and I couldn’t ask for a better situation.

My bedroom. Colorful and a little cluttered.
For the first time in the five years I’ve been here, I’m not responsible for anyone else beside myself, and that liberty and freedom has been crucial to my success in school and my happiness. I’m not going to lie; it can get lonely. I still don’t have a lot of friends, but I try to keep myself busy. Overall experience: 9.5 out of 10.

Living room area of my current apartment
I don’t regret any of the experiences I had and I’m thankful for all the roommates who walked in and out of the front door. I learned a lot about patience, acceptance, balance, and most importantly, myself. Roommates can be a joy, but they can also be a pain. Make sure you establish your boundaries and maintain a good relationship with everyone involved. Sometimes it’s easier to choose sides than remain neutral, but neutral is a good thing when it comes to conflict under the same roof. If worse comes to worst, and no resolutions can be made, accept that who you’re living with may not be a compatible roommate. When it comes to living situations in college, you have to make sure you’re watching out for yourself and your education. That is why you’re here after all.