<p>Son will move into his freshman dorm soon (about 10 days), and he doesn't contact his roommate yet (nor does his roommate contacts him). Son said that he just doesn't know what to say if he is the one who initiates the conversation, so he wants to wait for his roommate contacting him at first. </p>
<p>Since all my friends' kids did contact their roommate and coordinated few things beforehand, I suggested my son to do the same. Yet he is still doing nothing.
Is this normal? Or it should be fine? How about your kids' experiences? I really want to have solid reasons before I "push" him to contact his roommate.
Thanks for all your input in advance.</p>
<p>I think the high school social circuit causes kids to place themselves in narrow boxes and they are full of trepidation when having to negotiate out of their box. </p>
<p>Your son may very well be fearful of embarrassing himself to someone of unknown social status (jock, nerd, cool party dude, etc.) and would rather react to cues from an initial contact by the roommate. I would tell him college is the time to leave high school behind and to do what reasonable adults would do in this situation. Not only is it socially appropriate but working out some logistics, which really would benefit both roommates, is “the right thing to do”. In fact, him reaching out first telegraphs a certain sophistication and maturity. </p>
<p>Besides the other items mentioned a computer printer (which one roommate could bring) is a common shared item.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it is probably not that big a deal, especially for boys, if there is no contact beforehand. I don’t think my S contacted his roommate. He took a small refrigerator, but microwaves were not allowed in dorm rooms and he wasn’t planning to take a TV. There would have been space in the room for 2 refrigerators if it ended up that way. Roommate was from farther away and flew to school, so he didn’t bring one. I wouldn’t make him contact if he is unwilling.</p>
<p>Let it go and leave him be. I think with boys, there is not a whole lot of conversation going on beforehand. My ds sent multiple emails to his roommate before school began last yr (he’s a soph) and got minimal response. They didn’t end up having anything in common and basically coexisted the entire yr.</p>
<p>OP, I wouldn’t push him. Logistical coordination of dorm room equipment isn’t terribly important in the grand scheme of things. If it happens that they both bring a TV and neither brings a fridge, so what? It’s not as if that’s an insoluble problem. Before the age of social media, generations of students somehow managed to work these things out in person. Let him go at the pace he’s comfortable.</p>
<p>ETA – BTW, pre-contact is not a great predictor of how the year will go. My D had a flourishing on-line relationship with her roomie-to-be, but things went so badly in person that they were barely speaking by Christmas. </p>
<p>OTOH, my nephew who’s leaving for school next week has had only one exchange with his roommate (prompted, I suspect, by the roommate’s Mom):</p>
<p>“Hey. My name’s John. I guess we’re going to be roommates.”<br>
“Oh OK.” </p>
<p>No discussion of printers or microwaves (to my SIL’s disappointment). But that’s all that either of them felt the need to say. Honestly, there aren’t any rules; the two students involved decide how to do it, or not do it.</p>
<p>I encouraged my S to contact his roommates this summer and none of them responded. Ugh. Reading amandakayak’s post, I’m not getting a great feeling. heh. But they all survive, so it’s really not the biggest deal.</p>
<p>S has tried to reach his (at my suggestion, and housing office’s also) with no luck. No FB, phone just rings, and email not returned. I guess they’ll meet in a few days.</p>
<p>^Thanks a lot, everyone. Reading your posts made my day! I think I’ll just suggest son to contact his roommate one more time, then that’s it. </p>
<p>The only concern I have is that, since my son has just rent out refrigerator from school (this is his priority because he needs the refrig to store medications) and I don’t think his school allows two refrigerators in the room. Other than that, son won’t bring any big items since he will attend college 3000 miles away and my family makes sure that he only brings the bare minimum to school in the beginning. :)</p>
<p>OP, you’re doing the right thing in packing light! And if it turns out that the roommate also rented a fridge, then one of them can un-rent. No big deal at all. :)</p>
<p>My fear wuld be if you are afraid to contact your roommate, will you be able to talk to a prof, seek help from school staff, etc? if one can’t even ask about a fridge, what about a bad grade, confusion over an assignment, </p>
<p>That’s why i almost insist on the email, get over thatnstupid fear of oh they’ll think I’m stupid or whatever, it’s a handicap to not t least reach out and ask a simple question.</p>
<p>I think boys are especially hesitant. My son was not interested in contacting his roommate, until we actually went out to buy things for the dorm. Then he kind of caught on that it was not smart to spend 100s of dollars for possibly duplicative stuff. He contacted the roommate, and the roommate responded quickly. They have had no personal conversation to speak of. I give him credit for being willing to reach out.</p>
<p>I would not worry about this. Either your son will return the refrigerator or you son’s roommate will return, resell, send home his. My son did not contact his roommate beforehand because room assignment during the first two weeks was temporary in his school. It turned out fine in the end. There are more big things in the boys’ heads than room utilities.</p>
<p>When D1 was a freshman, she contacted her assigned roommate and did not get any reponse. It made her feel pretty bad… but in the end that person did not come to her college at all, and she got a completely different roommate anyway. </p>
<p>Also, my nephew (a college student) worked at a summer camp all summer where he had literally no internet connection. He just got back today… so if he had roomates trying to contact him via Facebook or email, they would have gotten no response.</p>
<p>It is hard for an 18 year old to do, but they should not take it at all personally if they do not hear back from a roommate. There can be good reasons that have nothing to do with your kid regarding why they didn’t hear back.</p>
<p>Geez, you guys all think it’s no big deal for two families to lug duplicate (sort of) expensive heavy appliances?? All of my kids had rooms up multiple staircases. I would have been pretty ticked off if we then had to haul something not only back down the stairs, back into the car and then back into a store or storage. All because someone doesn’t want to send a three sentence e-mail??</p>
<p>Hey — I see we’re rooming together. I’ve already rented the mini-fridge. Are you planning on bringing anything else that we could maybe share? See you Thursday…</p>
<p>And yes, my sons were both hesitant about doing that, but realized that hearing me nag about it was more painful then the actual e-mail.</p>
<p>^Son just admitted to me that he was simply lazy to contact his future roommate, and he is going to do so now. I’ll share all your posts to him that was caused by his laziness. Haha!</p>
<p>Thank you again everyone. I read through every words you wrote and I do think that both sides of opinions got good points.</p>