The smell of hair burning on a curling iron, the sound of Beyoncé blasting, and cute decorations and inspirational quotes everywhere in sight. If those are the first things that come to mind when you think of six college-aged females living in an off-campus house together, then you’d be correct.
Living in a house of six women who are best friends is kind of like the crazy, overbearing family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, only not as overbearing or Greek but just as crazy. The scene where the main character, Toula, has every female in her family trying to do her hair and makeup at the same time on her wedding day is just a more intense version of living with five roommates.
As a resident of an off-campus house at Rowan University, I can confirm that decorations, music, and hairstyling do make up a large portion of our house’s atmosphere. But that’s just the stuff that visitors see. Living in this house with these five other women has a different meaning to me.
Okay here’s the truth. There is drama, crying, laughing and no privacy. I don’t just have to worry about myself, but all my roommates as well. It’s kind of like having a family. We share the refrigerator and freezer, which is always packed to the brim and I know before I open it that something will come shooting out and injure my foot. My love life, school life, and social life are everyone’s business. If someone is sick we all take care of them. If someone is going through a breakup we all hate the guy. If someone needs something to wear we all offer our wardrobes.
When I first considered living off-campus with my best female friends I was so excited. No RAs, no dealing with annoying dorm-neighbors, and no more rules. But then I was a little skeptical. Would we all drive each other crazy? Would I be able to get any homework done? Would living together make us see a side of each other we wouldn’t like?
Yes, we do drive each other crazy sometimes and we have to go to the library if we want to get any homework done. But I have gained more tolerance for people and realized what it’s like to truly have friends I know I can count on.
So I am going to break down a few situations that occur fairly often.
What it’s like when someone goes on a date:
We were all obviously there when she met the guy, because we are always together, and we know every texting conversation they’ve had, because we were there to tell her what to say. But now she has to go out on her own…without us. So we have a normal reaction of course. Freak out and scream because we are just as excited, if not more, as our roommate is. Then we pick out an outfit for her and help do her hair and makeup. When the date is at the door we make a comment about having her back before midnight. As he walks out we whisper to our roommate that if the date is going badly just send an “SOS” text and we will come and save her.
What it’s like when we eat dinner together:
First of all, it’s rare that we are all available to eat dinner at the same time because we are so busy and we do, surprisingly, have our own lives. But when we do find the time to all share a meal together it’s non-stop talking about our days and updating each other on our lives. If an outsider was listening to the conversation they would have no idea what was happening. We sort-of have our own language of inside jokes and say certain words in accents that only we understand and find funny. We also must talk about interesting people in our lives that we have given code names to even though we know their real names such as: Band-Aid Tom, Bun Girl, Hot RTN Guy, Turtleneck Guy, and Condom Guy.
What it’s like when we talk about how we feel:
We know about each other’s pasts so we understand what our roommate is going through when she is crying or having an emotional breakdown. We also always revisit situations and try to reanalyze them and figure out why an ex-boyfriend ended things or what we should have said to that creepy guy who was hitting on us. Talking about how precious we think freshmen are or how much we can’t stand the over-achiever who sits in the front row of our class are also common topics.
I’ve realized I will probably never live with a group of friends my age ever again. We will never be as close and as involved in each other’s lives as we are right now. Despite the lack of privacy and room in the refrigerator I try to take in this experience while it lasts because the next person I share a house with could be a guy- a husband- and that’s even crazier.