When I realized I was going to be put with two random roommates, I was horrendously nervous. Very few things actually intimidate me; my sister-in-law Megan told me the story of her roommate freshman year that had a drug problem and ended up punching her in the face one night. Being from Georgia, I was already scared I wouldn’t fit in with all these Jersey girls and Long Islanders.
So with the possibility of crazy psycho roommates from a place I had never been in my life, I was pretty worried. When I found out the name of one my new roommates in August, I added her on Facebook and she messaged me. She told me she was a cheerleader and I told her I did theatre in high school. But I assured her I wasn’t a weird theatre kid and she explained she wasn’t an annoying cheerleader. The first thing we found out we had in common was a love of football. And I guess that’s when I realized that the situation would probably be okay.
By move-in day, I was still a bit jittery. In my own mind, I stuck out horribly in my Atlanta Braves shirt, and I felt like a total outsider. After carrying in my two cartloads of belongings, I started unpacking my things. About 30 minutes later, my new roommate Molly walked in the door. She dropped all her stuff on the bed and was like “Hiii!!!!” We both started laughing and immediately started complaining about how much stuff we had. Eventually her parents left, and my brother and sister-in law left too and Molly and me sat on the floor while folding all our clothes. It’s crazy over the last few months how much we’ve realized that we both have in common. Specifically that she was born in Georgia about 45 minutes away from where I’m from and lived there for 13 years. We both love crime shows, have the same shoe size, the list goes on and on. It’s actually pretty perfect.
I know a lot of people don’t always get along with their roommates and it doesn’t always work out perfectly, but moving up here and getting a random roommate was the best decision. Molly puts up with my crazy sleep schedule, she buys me snacks when she has extra meals, I make her tea when she’s up late studying, and sometimes now it’s hard to tell what stuff belongs to who.
It’s always good to find balance between how much time you spend with your roommate so you don’t get sick of each other, and I feel like we have that. I’m lucky to call Molly one of my best friends, and even though she’s moving home next semester, I have no doubts that she’ll come back and visit and we’ll keep in touch. People say that the friends you make in college are the ones you’ll keep forever, after this semester I have no doubt that this is completely true.