Welcome to Roommate 101. Today we’ll discuss some of the different types of roommates you may encounter in your life.
Type 1. The neat freak that flips out the second you leave a dirty sock on the ground.
Type 2. The guy that is never in the room or anywhere else and may not even exist.
Type 3. The partier that is smooth and always wins the ladies hearts.
Now for next week, how to steal your roommates Tasty Cakes without him knowing.
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I think that everyone should have a roommate at least once in their life, just to know what it is like. Sharing a space with someone creates a very unique relationship between two people. If you were to take the elements of living with your family and mix them with the fun times with friends, you’d get a roommate.
If you add too much family, you get a sibling. My brother was technically the first “roommate” I ever had, but I don’t like to count that. The relationship between two brothers is a thing of its own. Plus I already have to live under the same roof as my brother regardless. To us, it was more of just sharing a room than being roommates.
My brother is never in our room except to sleep (No, he isn’t a type 2. I see him too much around the house). And even then he goes to bed way before me, meaning I have to sneak into the room after the lights are turned off. Gotta say though, he has some interesting sleeping habits.
I didn’t get a real roommate and the experience that comes with it until after Sophomore year of high school. During that summer, I went to a lot of overnight leadership seminars. I’m not going to go into too much detail about them now as I am saving that for another post. But do know that I had roommates for each seminar. And each one was different from the rest.
The first seminar, I had two roommates. One was very nice and quiet. Our relationship was more of a coexistence in a room, we never got in each other's way. The other guy was a wild party kind of person. I remember our last night together, he and some of his friends were having a party in our room. And I'm not talking about a party with alcohol, I’m talking about an old fashioned hamburger and corn dog party. Apparently they took food from the cafeteria and brought it back to the room to reheat. Not really sure where they kept the food, we didn’t carry any backpacks during the day. Then he disappeared to go to another party. I didn’t like him that much.
The second seminar gifted me with better roommates. I still had that one who I barely interacted with, but I became friends with the other guy (sorta). We had a shared passion for football and spent a lot of time talking about it. He was a Patriots fan though, so there was a small amount of arguing. I don’t keep in touch with him, but part of me wishes I did.
The third seminar had a much different roommate experience. For starters, I only had one roommate this time. He was also from Taiwan and only spoke a little bit of English. We didn’t talk much, but we still got along very well. He was still adjusting to the new time zone of the U.S. though. In the morning, his alarms wouldn’t wake him up and I was too nice to do anything about it. So I lied in bed listening to the alarm beeps for the first 20 minutes of every day.
I do want to point out something about that last roommate experience though, it was made a lot better by the room itself. Seriously, it had a corner window and a nice view of the college’s campus.The room was surrounded with an actual wall and not cinder blocks. I’m not sure if we got a suite or what, but take some notes UD!
Speaking of which, time to talk about my freshman roommate. I know that’s why most of you are here. Hell, half of you probably already know who he is (if you do, don’t tell him I stole his tasty cakes). All of you were just waiting for me to dish out the dirt on what living with him was like. Well, there is no “dirt,” but don’t exit out yet. I swear there is still some interesting stuff.
I don’t want to use his real name for those that don’t know him, so I’ll make up a name. Let’s just call him... Alex. That’s a pretty generic name. We lived together in this room:
I remember when I first got the email that Alex was going to be my roommate. I sent an email to him right away giving a brief description of myself and sending him my contact information. Oh not my phone number, my Snapchat account of course. That’s a way better way to contact me than by phone.
We talked a lot at first, but not that much leading up to moving in day. So I was a little nervous about what I was going to get. “It’s gonna be type 3, I just know it!”
I actually moved in early for ANOTHER leadership program (I swear I’ll explain this leadership stuff eventually), so I was alone my first couple nights in the room. I was out when the move in process began and he was already moving in by the time I got back. I remember walking down the hall of my dorm, watching all these new people moving into their rooms, wondering what my roommate would be like. This was our first face to face meeting. I looked through the door and saw him.
My first thought was “Wow, this guy is really tall.” Now I’m a 6' 2" guy, so I don’t meet a lot of people that are bigger than me. But Alex was, by about half an inch. I did not expect him to be that tall (fun fact: he thought the same thing about me).
When I actually got to talk to him, there was a sigh of relief in me. He was really nice and I figured there wasn’t going to be any problems between us. Alex was from Pennsylvania and came to UD as a Chemical Engineer (or CHEG) Major. The University of Delaware has a pretty popular Chemical engineering program, which also means it's pretty rigorous. He worked hard a lot of the time, often studying in the lounge till one in the morning. I bought him Insomnia cookies for all his hard work once.
He also had a lot of Chemistry exams on Saturday mornings. I’m sorry, but that is just not fair. Who wants to take an exam on a Saturday? Matter of fact, who wants to proctor an exam on a Saturday? Is there really no other time during the week to take the exam? These are legitimate questions by the way.
The only real issue was the fact that he was an Eagles fan. A battle between a Cowboys fan and an Eagles fan can be anywhere from playful trash talk to a category 3 hurricane. And when you put the two in a room together, it very well could spell the recipe for disaster. Luckily, we didn’t fall for that disaster trap. In fact, we actually had fun rooting for competing teams. I still wasn’t keen on all those Eagles banners he hung up though.
That does bring up something that always confused me about Alex. He had this nice black plaque of Daunte Culpepper hanging up on the side of his dresser. Daunte Culpepper, a famous VIKINGS player. Not the Eagles. I mean, it was a nice plaque but I never understood why he had it. It is the only thing I never figured out about Alex.
There weren’t any crazy antics that went on inside of our room. We never went out and partied on the weekends (well, I didn’t) and not a lot of people came to our room. There was one time when he came into our room at 3 am with the “assistance” of a friend, but I don’t remember him being that out of it. I promise you resident assistants, we were clean!
Our good times together occurred more outside the room. One of my favorite stories with my roommate was this time we went to a basketball game. A lot of sporting events give out these free items for the first [insert number] students that come to the game. That day, they were giving out these UD pint glasses (for water of course). Instead of giving them out at the beginning of the game though, you got a voucher ticket that you could give to some afterwards to get your glass.
Since my roommate was busy doing homework, he got to the game late and didn’t get a voucher. But one of our friends found a voucher on the floor and gave it to him. He was in such a happy shock. Not only because he got a ticket, but the ticket was also our room number.
What made that story even better was the fact that he still brings it up every once in a while and claims it, “is his luckiest moment.” Which is actually kind of sad if you think about it.
There was another time during our final days together when one of the girls on our floor (the same person who found that ticket) curled Alex’s hair. I’m not sure what she saw in his hair that compelled her to do that, but I am thankful she did it. He came into the lounge half an hour later with a head full of curls. I laughed very hard at his new hairdo. Every once in a while I’ll look back at the photo of it when I need a good chuckle.
When all was said and done though, Alex was really one of the best roommates I ever had. What started out as a coexistence the first couple weeks turned into a beautiful friendship by the end. He was the Joey to my Chandler. The Oscar to my Felix. The Turk to my J.D. Saying goodbye to him amid the corona virus outbreak was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I miss living with him, he met all of my best expectations of what a roommate should be and then some. While he may not be my roommate anymore, he will always be my friend.
And who knows, my next roommate may be even better than Alex. If the past trends are any indication, my next roommate’s quality should go up. Until I do get a new roommate though, stay Mattastic!
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