The first roommate transferred at the end of his first semester (freshman.) He met his new roommate today - roommate moved in when my DS was home for the holidays. Roommate’s first words? “Would you be okay with switching roommates?”
I’m hoping this will work out well.
Hopefully it will work out. My friend’s DD has been through a similar experience. Freshman year roommate left after transferred after freshman year. It wasn’t a pleasant year as roommates. Sophomore year she met her new roommate and the girl had transferred there to be with a friend. After first semester this girl dropped out. My friend’s daughter is now a junior and sharing an apartment with two other girls. Despite the awful roommate situation, she’s enjoying her college experience. Good luck to your son.
Lol best of luck! One of my roommates has become one of my best friends. The other, well let’s say it’s a whole other story.
While kids are amazingly adaptable, a bad roommate/housing situation can certainly impact the college experience. This has been a source of stress/made things unpleasant for one of mine. It can suck. Hope it ends up good for your son!
Wait…so the new roommate was asking your son to leave? Or was he (new roommate) saying that he was leaving?
Not your problem.
The new roommate (let’s call him John) probably wanted to room with a specific person (let’s call him Bob) but was unable to do so for some reason. John is probably trying to make arrangements to room with Bob. This could mean that your son would be asked to room with Bob’s current roommate (let’s call him Steve) if the four people all agree to the switch.
In this case, it would be a good idea for your son to meet Steve first. It’s possible that Steve is a difficult person to room with – maybe extremely sloppy (or extremely neat) or he never takes showers or something like that. But it’s more likely that Steve is perfectly normal and that John and Bob simply like each other and want to room together.
Alternatively, John may be trying to make arrangements to move off-campus. In this case, if John departs, the university would probably assign someone else to room with your son.
^many, many years ago, my roommate (I’d moved into her room to get away from disastrous roommate --smoked, on phone with boyfriend all night long, generally unpleasant), switched rooms because her best friend down the hall got a new, even more disastrous roommate–whom I was then stuck with. No one asked my permission.
The second one was certifiably crazy. I finally moved out when she told me she “thought I was the only one she could trust, but then she knew she was wrong”. After telling me that demons were coming through the window that she had to defend herself from. And a lot of other stuff.
Thankfully, I was a transfer, not a new freshman, so I somehow muddled through. But–that was awful.
I’m pretty sure you’re S’s experience can not be THAT bad! 
On the other hand, many, many years ago, my first roommate decided she wanted to room with another girl of similar temperament (very social, very sophisticated) and stick me with her friend’s roommate, whom the two of them had previously described as certifiably crazy. (Heaven only knows how they described me.)
I agreed to the roommate switch, and it turned out that the friend’s roommate was not crazy at all. In fact, she was much like me – studious and introverted. Although we did not become friends, we were much more comfortable with each other than either of us had ever been with the social butterflies.
My best room mates were not my ‘friends’ prior
Thanks all!
@Otterma yeah the roommate wanted my kid to move out of my kid’s (shared) room.
@garland it helps to hear those worse case stories
Edited: the rest of my message disappeared. The new roommate is new on campus- starting mid year. He’s from another country, so I am assuming that he may only know a handful of people, if that. I can empathize wanting to room with someone you know.
My kid told him that he (my kid) is staying put. It’ll be good for him to work it out. My kid likes all the folks on his floor- they are a pretty tight group.
^^^ Good for your son for standing up for himself. Being asked to move out by a totally brand new roommate is ridiculous.
Your son shouldn’t be a pushover about this, but if switching could give him a reasonable person and distance from someone unpleasant, sometimes it is best. Way back in the 80s as a Freshman, I (a Jew) and my future room mate and friend down the hall (Muslim) were each were stuck with intolerant people as room mates - they wanted more Jesus in their immediate surroundings. We agreed to BOTH move to a room elsewhere in the building so the two of them could be together and we would be far away from the intolerance. Saved the year for both of us.
“they wanted more Jesus in their immediate surroundings” LOL
Good for your son. New kid’s problem, he did not need to accommodate him. My son’s first roommate left at the semester to do a semester “abroad” (left for a Utah school to continue with breadth reqs and ski). His second roommate was a transfer with a girlfriend- son had the room to himself a lot. I recall telling my random roommate eons ago that I preferred the dorm issued blue bedspreads to her purple ones, but I did help paint the blue room cream color- dorm provided paint- as a compromise (I was a returning sophomore lucky to live in the dorms instead of commuting). Roommates do not need to be friends, they just need to get along.