Secrets- we all have them. Some are deep dark secrets that only we know about, and some are little white lies we tell ourselves on a daily basis. Being in college comes with a strange new experience that presents us with a new array of questions and problems we have never had to deal with before. This is the roommate experience. Something I’ve noticed about roommates, myself included, is that aside from friendship, roommates develop a careful keep-the-peace relationship. This relationship involves adhering to each other’s needs, schedules, lifestyles and occasionally white lies. These white lies aren’t necessarily mean or bad, but the necessary evils of living with someone you aren’t related to. These white lies didn’t happen in our homes when we were younger because our moms would’ve noticed if we took her socks, but our roommate won’t. If you’ve ever kept these secrets from your roommates, don’t feel bad because your roommate has definitely done them too.
1. Bobby pins.
We never seem to be able to find our own bobby pins anyway, so why not borrow just a couple from our roommate’s stash by her hair dryer? Just make sure to tiptoe and not slam the door.
2. We know where that lost shirt is.
She’s asked about it dozens of times, but for some reason we can’t seem to remember that it’s at the bottom of the hamper- or the back of our closet at home.
3) Eaten the rest of the ice cream.
When there’s that moment of weakness, such as having a bad day or PMSing, we know that sitting in the freezer is an open carton of Ben & Jerry’s. Honestly, who can blame us?
4) Tried her shampoo.
For some reason, someone else’s shampoo always looks like the shampoo you’ve always wanted to try, but never have. We swear our hair is softer after we’ve used it.
5) Denied taking something…
…and then secretly put it back a few days after she texts the group chat about it. She’ll just think she misplaced it, right?
6) Instagram stalked her boyfriend.
Does he really like her?
7) Ruined an article of clothing and put it back.
I just finally got the confession out of one of my roommates yesterday that she broke the button off my birthday dress… a year ago. Ask me how many times I’ve asked who broke the button.
8) Made a mess, denied it and blamed it on that roommate.
We all know the easy target to blame any mess on.
9) Pretended to be asleep when they came home and wanted to talk about their days.
Sometimes any interaction is too much interaction.
10) Ignored calls and texts for hours.
No, I don’t want to turn around to get your charger at home before I meet you at the library. Yes, I’m going to show up without your charger and pretend I’m just looking at my phone upon arrival.
11) Talked about them to our parents.
They are our parents. They have to love us even if we complain for 45 minutes about that one time she locked our hairbrush in her room while she was at work all day.
12) Roommate obligations.
We’re laying in bed, watching Netflix, it’s below zero and we get the text. Her paper is due in her next class in 10 minutes, she forgot her laptop, and her paper is sitting on the kitchen table. If we say no, we’re basically Satan.
13) You didn’t want to let her borrow something.
For some reason we can’t find those studs she loves to wear. We know they’re hidden in the food cabinet.
14) When we promised to pay them back for something but we knew we weren’t going to.
Yeah we pretend we will, but there’s no chance of going to the ATM to get that $2.50 she spent on that coffee.
15) “Accidentally” woken them up from a nap.
We had no idea she was sleeping! But hey, now that she’s awake we can tell her about all the cool stuff that happened during the four hours of time apart.
Let’s be real- we love to hang out with our roommates. Yeah, we all do these creepy secret things and pretend that we don’t, but it’s okay because we can’t stay mad at each other for doing something that we will probably do tomorrow. Roommates are put in our lives to make us more tolerant, patient people while driving us a little bananas.