<p>OK so I just need some advice and insight on what I would be facing the moment I set foot in my dorm.</p>
<p>I am a shy, introverted, borderline antisocial person, who is not used to living with another dude in the same room. So what is it like to have a roommate for the first time?</p>
<p>How does it feel like to be away from your parents and be totally independent and in full command of yourself and your actions?</p>
<p>What new responsibilities would I need to undertake and what are some helpful tips to keep in mind?
Do u need to clean your rooms, etc? What about setting alarm clocks?</p>
<p>What do you do when u need a private peaceful moment away from everyone ( I sometimes need those)? How do you manage to do that with a roommate? </p>
<p>How do you maintain your privacy? How do you change clothes? What if you are fat and have moobs and do not want to show them (lool! but its actually a serious question)? What if u need to jackoff?</p>
<p>Just fill me in on your relationship with your roommate. Do most of you become best friends (I mean u literally are living with them)?</p>
<p>Uh, yeah, you have to clean your room and set your alarm clock lol, who do you think is going to do it for you? You’ll get a sense of your roommate’s schedule and you’ll know when you can be alone in the room. You can change in the bathroom if you want, there are stalls in both the toilets and showers. You might be friends with your roommate, or you might just coexist. It’s okay if you aren’t friends, though, lots of people aren’t friends with their roommates. It might seem scary now, but you will get used to it.</p>
<p>You can always set your cell phone (or Nintendo DS, which I use) under you pillow or next to your head with a low volume. I don’t know if you can set a cell phone alarm on vibrate, since I hardly use my cell phone. </p>
<p>There’s also the possibility your roommate’s a heavy sleeper or will regularly wake up early, even on weekends.</p>
<p>May I give you some motherly advice, and as a former dorm roommate (many years ago)? You may or may not end up friends with your roommate, it’s a toss-up. If things are really terrible, you can go to the dean of students/living and request a room change. If you can’t changes rooms/roommates, you can switch on the down-low with someone else in the dorm who hates their roommate too; you’re not supposed to but it happens. If you need quiet time, there’s always the library, empty public spaces in any of the dorms, the cafteria, student lounges, etc. And there’s always the time-honored neck-tie on the door signal. Some roommates are only in the shared room for sleeping and you don’t have to worry about them. If you need personal time for dressing or other things, you can find scope out your roomie’s habits and dress/change when he used the bathroom or showers. I had a roommate who used to dress in her closet! Don’t worry if you and your roommate don’t get along. I was so/so with my freshman roommate, not friends with sophomore year roommate, but great friends with junior year roomie. Had a single my senior year. Depending on how many dorms your college has, you can always find SOMEBODY you get along with. Good luck!</p>
<p>As for the alarm clock, you are there to learn and part of learning means getting up in time to go to class. I used to get up at 5:30 everyday and my nightbird roommate didn’t like it, but that’s what I needed to do to learn.
Don’t switch rooms on the “down low”. You can get kicked out of the dorms if caught and if the person damages your old room, you will still be held responsible.
The best way to clean your room is to make a routine. On Sunday evenings, I would wash my bedding, take everything off my desk, wipe it down and vacuum the floor and take out my personal trash can and do my weekly chore (I lived in a suite and we had a chore chart). Set a routine like that and your room will stay clean.</p>
<p>I always woke up earlier than my roommate. I tried to be respectful though. I turned off my alarm as soon as I could (no snoozing it) and I left off as many lights as possible and was quiet as possible. As a result, when I went to bed earlier than my roommate, she would do the same thing: Turn off as many lights as possible and be as quiet as possible.</p>
<p>Cleaning your room is really a personal preference. Yes. You will be responsible for cleaning it, but how often you clean it and what you define as clean is up to you and your roomate. Who knows? You might end up with an anal roommate who loves to clean. You might end up with a total slob. Just talk about it at the beginning of the year and decide what’s appropriate. (Also there’s a difference between dirty and messy. Clothes everywhere is fine, but food sitting out for days or weeks is just plain disgusting and you’re going to have some nasty critters come visit you.)</p>
<p>You’ll quickly learn how to ignore your roommate’s alarm clock, and he will learn to ignore yours. It might seem annoying, but you’ll hardly even notice after a while.</p>
or vice versa</p>