<p>I think you have a good point, M's Mom. It's akin to the system of making teenagers start school at 7:30, when they are desperate for more sleep, but having 5 yr olds who are naturally up with the birds wait until 9. </p>
<p>I, too, envied people who had friendly roommates. I had gone to boarding school in another country for a few years, and was accustomed to sharing a communal dorm room and communal bathrooms, but my roommate made it perfectly clear from the first day when she refused an invitation to go to lunch with my parents and I that I was persona non grata. Reading some of the other stories here, I feel lucky in comparison, though.</p>
<p>My first roommate was from Iran (1970s) and didn't like to take showers. I stayed out of the room as much as possible.</p>
<p>Our neighbors daughter had a roommate that was a devil worshipper and liked to hold "services" in the room. They didn't stay together very long.</p>
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Our neighbors daughter had a roommate that was a devil worshipper and liked to hold "services" in the room. They didn't stay together very long.
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<p>Not exactly devil worshipers, but my two freshman "roomies" ended up forming some secret club loosely based on Tolkien's stories, and ended up having their meetings in our room while I was trying to sleep or study for some crazy thermodynamics test. They kept calling each other strange names, walked barefeet in the snow and probably smoked something bizzare (however, not in our room)... After a semester, I packed my belonings and moved across the hall into another triple that had two quiet ladies, a freshman and a senior as its occupants. The freshman bio major ended up my roommate for the rest of my college life, and many years later, we are still great friends. The hobbit "roomies"? They failed half of their freshman courses and left college to look for other opportunities.</p>
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<p>My first roommate was from Iran (1970s) and didn't like to take showers.<<</p>
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<p>My brother had a roommate from Egypt who similarly didn't shower, explaining that back home in Egypt they didn't have enough water to take showers. Pointing out that he was in the US now, and there was plenty of water available had no effect.</p>
<p>My first roommate greeted me with his hunting knife; he was sharpening it when I arrived with suitcases in hand. He proceeded to stamp out his cigarette on the tile floor, and I proceeded to Administration to change roommates the next day. I was then assigned to a room with a junior who thought he was Fonzie from "Happy Days" (he was mad at first that he lost his single-room status); we got along OK, though his act was tiresome.
When my son was a freshman last year, he roomed with a friend from high school. Although he lost a chance to meet someone new, he had a known quantity that turned out much better than the first-year experience was for me!</p>
<p>I lived in a quad my Freshamn year. There was an African American who was one of the funniest persons I've ever met, a very shy blonde from a farm in Kentucky, an extremely preppy redhead (matching whale belt and headband), and me, a somewhat sheltered Hispanic girl from Texas. Our neighbor next door was a girl from the Philipines and she was over in our quad most of the time. We all got along great most of the time and had a great time! I was really messy at the time and a little wild (due to my sheltered life up to that point), so when I told my H about this thread, he said, "Are you going to tell them about 'you,' the roommate from hell?" </p>
<p>We all lived together throughout the next three years in different combinations and adding other girls along the way; we spent time in eachother's homes over the holidays or during the summer; and two of us even worked together one summer at a summer camp. We have all kept up with eachother in different degrees, but at least once a year through holiday cards.</p>
<p>Not a horror story, but . . . my freshman roommate was a HS friend, an affable, unassuming guy. He was so quiet, we barely spoke, and we elected not to room together after that first year, gradually losing track of one another as we went our separate ways. </p>
<p>In fact, I didn't see him junior or senior years, until graduation, where one symbolic undergrad received a diploma before the ceremony broke up into smaller groups by school for the presentation of individual diplomas. The ceremonial diploma went to my freshman roommate. I remember yelling to all my friends, "hey, that was my roomie; I roomed with a genius!"</p>
<p>I liked my roommate okay but she fell in love with a boy from home who didn't go to college and who worked in a basement counting checks for banks...so he started coming up on the weekends, every weekend....and I would return home from a day of classes and working two shifts at the dining hall (to pay my way)....to find my "things" stacked outside the door.</p>
<p>it was either that or have to sleep across from them doing god knows what....</p>
<p>Oh yeah, she never made her bed and I DID. Guess where they liked to sit after they finished their gymnastics routine....yep my clean bed. If CSI could have seen that bed, yuk.</p>
<p>We got along fine when he was not there....but I would wander the hall looking for an empty bed and often crash in the tv room down the hall.
Oh yes, college, those WERE the days.</p>
<p>The guy with Jeffrey Dahmer as his frosh roomie said he was very quiet and very strange, but was mostly left alone. At the time he just seemed like a guy who didn't fit in on the floor. People avoided him, or just left him alone and eventually he hung out with only girls. What he said is really scary was that he actually went home for the weekend a few times with one of these friends. Can you imagine knowing, as a parent that you hosted the friend of your daughter's that was now a serial killer? He's pretty sure that Dahmer left school sometime during soph year, either dropped out or transferred. I would just be glad I still had my head.
:-/</p>
<p>When I returned after my first semester as a freshman, I learned that my original roommate had flunked out. That was scary from an academic viewpoint but what was more frightening was his replacement. My "new" roommate had just been released from the state prison after serving 15 years for murder. He was 28 years old and had been convicted as a fifteen year old but was ordered by the judge to serve time in the state prison due to the circumstances of the crime. Here I was, a skinny 18 year-old kid from the burbs with a street-wise ex-con for a roomy.</p>
<p>He was great guy!!! Played basketball for our Division 1 team, graduated in four years and went on to get a Masters degree. Is now a respected businessperson in the same city.</p>
<p>Freshmen year I lived with a 36 year old, married ex punk rocker and Hollywood night club manager. Couldn't have asked for a better person to live with. Sometimes you have to think outside the box to have the most fun.</p>
<p>Interesting -- how even back in the dark ages there appears to have been some number of "nontraditional" students (ie, non-18-year-olds). </p>
<p>Seriously -- even now, would a school administration put a 36-year-old, or an ex-con, with an 18-year-old??</p>
<p>The son of a good friend of mine is rooming with a fellow who just returned from a tour in Iraq. Very different from my friend's son, who just spent the summer hanging out at the beach and working at the Baskin-Robbins in town.</p>
<p>Then there are those poor kids who roomed with the Virginia Tech guy . . . .</p>
<p>"My freshman roommate had dated a heroin dealer. That had pluses and minuses. On the minus side, the obvious (I had to call her shrink when she was on a bad trip and he had to advise me about what to do) and on the plus side, she introduced me to the Velvet Underground. I must admit, "Heroin" is still my favorite song."</p>
<p>LOL, Theresa. I've noticed that "definitely" seems to be one of the most frequently misspelled words in most web forums. I've itched to correct it many a time! <g></g></p>