Roommates

Roommates:
A short poem (that follows no poetic formulae or rules) followed by a more detailed explanation.

We met by chance,

by our signatures on a contract.

Who knew the friendship that would ensue?

We laughed and cried,

not afraid to share.

We met by chance,

by our signatures on a contract.

Why did it not feel like a deal with the devil?

Passively changing the temperature,

creating contention.

While these extremes exist

to create balance in the world,

one roommate exists to cause nothing but grief.

The roommate who brings 

the unwelcome addition.

Why does this fiance

come over everyday?

Overtaking our common areas for activities

not for the common good.

Causing only collective struggle.

During years time at college, there is almost no way to avoid having roommates.

Some people have the luxury of going to a school near their home town.

They live under the comforting shelter of mom and dad for a little time longer.

Others gather friends to create a pseudo-family while they are away.

Some choose to relocate over 2,000 miles away and play the roommate roulette.

Thankfully, the roommate spectrum looks like a bell curve:

·      Most of your roommates will be average—friends who are usually tolerable who you don’t mind coming home to at night but with whom you don’t feel obligated to share your deepest, personal thoughts.

·      On the ends, however, lie the truly special roommates. On the far left, the chaos causing, headache inducing individuals. On the far right, roommates who develop into true friends.

·      If you are lucky, your experience will look like an evenly distributed bell curve—not too many crazies, but just enough to make your life interesting with a good mix of those “heart-spilling” friends.

·      There are, however, outliers. Roommates who fluctuate from the left to right and vice versa. This is just human nature; we all grow and change (especially while in school) so it makes sense that our relationships will too. It is difficult being thrown into a living situation with people who were raised differently than you were and have different ideas of normalcy. Most people will realize that, as adults, compromises must be made. Some, however, never will and those people will generally have a more difficult time as long as their roommates aren’t complete push-overs.

·      Another type of roommate is the two for one. You think that your house will be the home to six 20-something females with the occasional guest, party, get-together, etc. (I’m basically trying to get you to understand that I am not a complete curmudgeon) Some roommate, however, bring with them a fiancé. A person who thinks that since their significant other pays rent, they have the right to anything and everything in your home. The two of them regularly take over the kitchen for their couples dinner. They often watch movies in the living room, occupying the only comfortable reading chair in your whole home. The fiancé will rarely take the time to learn the names of the roommates—why bother? Instead, they will wait for the awkward moment when said roommates interrupt a particularly passionate make out session on the couch; the fiancé will later, rather indiscreetly, talk about “that one roommate who always walks in during awkward situations.” This fiancé will also lose some sense of social decency; he may come over even though he is coughing as though he just contracted the plague. Most people wouldn’t show up to someone’s house in such a state, but what is a fiancé supposed to do? Stay away until you are no longer contagious? Only a normal, non-engaged person would think of that. Let’s get one thing straight—I understand that I am susceptible to all of the germs and nastiness my roommates and I bring in from the outside world. That is what happens when you sign up to share a house. I did not sign up, however, to have you coming around my home for days on end, coughing up a lung, and contaminating my entire living room and kitchen. Next time, you do that, I may just walk around in a surgical mask, following you will a can of Lysol until you get the hint.