I'M NOT going to lie to you. You probably want to know about roommates. I'm going to tell you about my roommate experiences from last year. Take from it what you like.
I had two roommates: One first semester and another second semester.
To be brutally honest, I didn't like my first roommate. I think the feeling was mutual. I resented his bringing girls into the room at 3 a.m. to do it like they do on the Discovery Channel while I was already sleeping. I didn't like his drinking in the room and his attendant vomiting in the room. I didn't like his mess or his really bad New York attitude.
To the New Yorkers reading this, don't take this as an assault on you. My roommate gave you a bad name when he said New Yorkers have sex in front of friends while in study groups. I don't believe it.
At any rate, I'm sure he had his complaints about me.
Fortunately, I know what a good roommate is too. My second one was a nice, interesting person, with a uniquely admirable outlook on life -- someone for whom I willingly fought extreme fatigue, time and again, to prolong a fascinating conversation until four in the morning.
I'm certain that my disorder in the form of books and clothes lying around, overflowing trash cans and so on, must have offended his very ordered sensibilities. He, nevertheless, tolerated this character flaw of mine. I only hope that I was able to reciprocate a fraction of his toleration of me -- such as when he allowed me to room with him even though his alternative was a single room.
I'm not going to leave my commentary out. I truly would be remiss not to tell you what I took from my roommate experience.
I learned that living with a stranger entails unambiguous sacrifices. You don't have to like your roommate to make the situation work, and often people you like will never make good roommates. My first roommate and I were unwilling to make sacrifices for our mutual betterment. We probably ended up losing more by not making those sacrifices. As a result, we lived in a perpetually hostile environment.
There is a way to combat this. I know because of my second roommate experience. Roommate success means mutual respect. Consequently, it means self-sacrifice. But most of all it means toleration. It means trying to sleep with the light on when your roommate has a term paper due tomorrow morning. It means staying out of your roommate's hair when he's having a bad day. If you give this, you can expect the same in return.
You'll hear a lot of rhetoric about how roommate tribulations make you a better person. I suspect that's true, but I also suspect that's a textbook excuse for the Residence Life Office not to add another case to its docket.
One thing is certain. If you can overcome the trying situations with someone you must live with 24 hours a day -- and therefore cannot escape -- then surely almost any other conflict -- with students, co-workers, teachers and so on -- is remediable.
Therefore, I'll issue words of optimism tempered by words of caution. Sharing a room can foster special friendships, and if you're lucky, it might be special enough to last a lifetime or to make you willing to room together again the following year. But you can't walk in expecting this.
Right away, you can expect to make sacrifices. Be prepared to share a room so small it wouldn't even make an adequate horse stable. Expect to go to bed at different times and to listen to your heavy-sleeping roommate's alarm clock sound for 15 minutes and to have music that you hate playing from time to time. Be ready to find somewhere else to stay when your roommate's girlfriend comes to visit for the weekend.
How do you foster the mutual respect for this arrangement to work? Be straightforward. Be cross if you need to be. It's important. Create rules you both can agree on. Do it right away, and make some provision for enforcing them. If you don't, your rules will be a sham. Just as a parent must be a parent first and a friend second, make your room a livable environment. Then worry about the pleasantries.
Your first year will be adventurous as it is. You'll meet new academic challenges, new social challenges. You'll probably undergo some personality development. Make your roommate situation one less headache. And if it becomes a headache, let it be a source of character growth.
Congratulations on making it to the University. Best wishes for an exciting and special year.
(Jeffrey Eisenberg is a Cavalier Daily columnist.)
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