On Roommates

I am a college student. I cannot afford my own apartment. Even if I could, there are few/none to be found within the required 1-mile radius from campus, so I join the ranks of starving college students throughout the world and share my house with other starving college students.

Some people are lucky (or wise) enough to rent rooms with people they know. Sure, you always run the risk of losing friends because sometimes even the best friends make the most lousy roommates, but I'd argue that the odds for success are better between familiar roommates. I've been burned a few times in past, so I made the decision this year to find a place where I could have my very own, private little corner.

*Benefits to having my very own, private little corner:
--100% control over the clutter factor. Any and all clutter is my own problem.
--I may have a repeated love affair with the Snooze Button, with no concern I'm waking someone up or annoying them.
--Closet. Space.
--Earphones are an accessory not a necessity, especially after 11pm.
--Undisturbed escape from unwanted/uninvited/loud guests.
--I could sleep naked. I don't, but the option is mine.

*Similar bnefits also apply to having my very own, private pantry for non-perishable food, though I can't say I'd want to sleep naked in my pantry.

As far as I can see, really the only drawback to having a private room is padding my rent check with a few more bucks than the girls who share a room but honestly, that $35 is priceless. At least in theory.

For the most part, having a private room has been all it's chalked up to be. It's very nice to be able to come in at night as late as I want without having to be respectful and quiet for the person fast asleep four feet to my right. But really, for all the benefits of a private room, sharing a bedroom isn't all that bad.

In my experience, what I have found most difficult in sharing an apartment with 2-4 other girls is not so much the bedroom area, but the public area. Sharing a space between two people may be aggravating and perhaps a bit compromising, but when you start sharing things between 5 people, that's when things start to get messy... And I do mean that as literally as I do figuratively.

One would think that five girls between the ages of 20 and 23 would be grownup enough to be able to divide the limited space of a refrigerator, for example. There are many factors to take into account-- potential leftover containers, how many individual gallons of milk might need to be stored, how large an item should be in relation to how quickly it's going to get eaten, etc. At the moment, this is what I have stored in our fridge/freezer:
--1 tub margarine
--1 bottle Ken's Lite Caesar salad dressing
--1 container leftover Massaman curry from Bangkok Thai
--1 jar tomato sauce
--1 jar salsa
--6 frozen dinners
--1 lb frozen ground beef
--3 bags frozen vegetables
--3 popcicles
--1 container cottage cheese
--1 package sliced cheese
--1 package Deli-sliced turkey
--(Until this morning when I finished it) 1 gallon milk

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is not a great deal of food that needs to be refrigerated. In my opinion, even if you multiplied this by 5 girls, it would not be enough to actually fill the fridge, much less to the capacity to which mine is currently filled. I have been known to check myself when grocery shopping, preferring to buy groceries that do not need to be refrigerated so I don't have fight to fit my things inside, not to mention label it in an obvious enough way so that my milk is not suddenly gone after four uses. Though I'll be honest, labeling is not even a guarantee for anything.

The disaster that is the rest of the kitchen, due to the dishwasher and various cleaning products being ignored, is too large a topic to attempt to tackle just now.

Juggling the living room can be a feat. Here we only have one television. While much of the time housemates may be indifferent to what's playing, it's usually a first-come-first-served arrangement. Tension may run high, however, in the following situations:
--Pleasant quietness interrupted by loud roommates arriving home
--A long string of questions beginning with "What's this?" when a roommate walks into a film or TV show in progress
--DVDs are lent out at will, regardless of who they actually belong to
--Taking extended naps (as opposed to accidental naps) on the couch in the middle of the day
--Dishes, trash, schoolbooks, clothing, blankets, etc. left strewn throughout the room until someone else picks it up

Another potential problem is the shared bathroom. Ah, the shared bathroom. The only thing better than having my very own, private little corner would be to also have my very own, private little bathroom (recognizing that my very own, private little apartment is not an option).

There are a number of tricks in sharing a bathroom including scheduling showers, using the mirror, and purchasing toilet paper. You must be sure to wash all extraneous hair that may have pulled from your head from the shower walls. You must keep the number of Bath and Body Works shower gels to an appropriate amount, since you have to share the corners of the bath with other people and they have shampoo too. Globs of toothpaste left behind in the sink may be acceptable to you, but it is never acceptable in a shared bathroom situation. Prescriptions of any kind may not be shared, even if they look harmless, like a face wash. The prescription was written for someone specifically, and you don't know how much that face wash costs, please and thank you!

Moreover, it must also be explicitly assumed that it is unacceptable to use toiletry items, such as hairspray, makeup, or tissues, that are located within the sacred walls of the very own, private little corner belonging to someone else, particularly if the door is SHUT. For that matter, do not enter any room where the door is shut unless it's your own. For that matter, do not enter any room that does not house any of your personal belongings unless given permission.

And, as if it needs to be reiterated, do not, under any circumstances, open the closed door to a room for which you are not paying rent and have the audacity to help yourself to ANYTHING. Typically, a person is paying extra money for a private room so it remains exactly that: private.


So I guess as much as I enjoy the benefits of my very own, private little corner, they cannot possibly ever outweigh the benefits of living blissfully, comfortably alone. Grass is always greener, isn't it?