Battle On

Now that you’re all settled in, what do you think of your new roommate — roommates for the unlucky triples? He seems cool, right? Doesn’t get in your face, has good hygiene, and seems to share some of the same interests. Who are you trying to fool? That relationship will change soon enough and probably over the most frivolous of circumstances.

For the freshmen, the questionnaire process that resulted in your pairing was a simple list of likes and dislikes. It’s the same type of method used by dating services, and how successful do you think those programs are? Did you even take the time to seriously think about each answer? All it takes to get the two of you at each other’s throats is a single instance of miscommunication. It could be as insignificant as eating leftover cheesy bread or as traumatic as walking in on a session of Double Vaginal Double Anal. In addition, these incidents tend to pile up over the course of the year, especially with the DVDA. It’s not uncommon for roommates to simply go there separate ways come June.

Think for a moment about the types of people that end up sharing close living spaces. There are couples, family members, prisoners and, of course, students. These people that end up living in the same room either have some type of intimate relationship or are forced to share due to efficiency measures. It’s completely understandable that you don’t enjoy living with a complete stranger. Even living with a friend doesn’t guarantee much. The two of you might enjoy hanging out, but that changes when you can’t decide who has the worse case of diarrhea to use the bathroom first.

I’ve had the pleasure of sharing a room with a gamut of ridiculous fucktards. I’ve lived with a fresh-off-the-boat Eastern European, a wannabe frat boy, a videogame addict and a jackass New Yorker that farted as frequent and loud as he bumped his favorite ’80s music.

It’s real easy to blame the other guy. It’s so easy that you’ll overlook the least likely person you’d expect to be a bad roommate: yourself. Well that can’t be possible. You’re perfect in every way, right? Surely, you’re roommate and their friends don’t talk about you behind your back.

There was only one time when I completely got along with a roommate. That was because we didn’t sleep in the same room. It started one night when I needed to stay up all night to write a paper and he wanted to stay up to play World of Warcraft. He realized it was more convenient to just stay in the living room due to his new proximity to the computer and kitchen. But that isn’t an applicable solution for many of you.

The one true answer to the roommate dilemma is simply to live without one. The most any of you can really hope for is to live in a single room. I lived in a studio two summers ago and I consider it one of the best summers in my life.

It might seem a bit early to think about roommate problems, but you’ve got nine long months ahead of you. You should be prepared to learn things no person should ever have to about a total stranger. Because if living by yourself isn’t a feasible option, then you’re going to have to be ready to retaliate when you find out exactly how many of your personal belongings can fit inside a two-inch hole.

Daily Nexus Art Director Mark Batalla prefers solitary confinement to rooming with a jackass New Yorker.