The Town of Odyssey

Okay, so this weekend I got my first set of long-term roommates ever, and while it's obviously a little soon for me to say how well things are going, needless to say I'm a bit bewildered and somewhat discomforted by this new living situation.

So, in an attempt to make sense of this slightly awkward, slightly uncomfortable new experience, I thought I'd see how/if anyone else has adjusted to living with strange new people, and how well or poorly things have gone and why. Also, advice and/or amusing stories about roommates are always welcome.

does my husband count?

seriously, the best rule of thumb is clean up after yourself. If everyone does that, there will be fewer conflicts. Other than that, I cannot help you, I have never lived with a group of people other than my family growing up, though we did only have 1 bathroom.

I had a roommate for a month (which is really not very long) when I studied abroad in Costa Rica, and the best advice I can give you is just to be friendly and considerate. I met her about a week before we flew to San José, and we got along fine. Be yourself, but always be flexible and willing to compromise.

As far as funny stories go, we almost got hit by a train on our first day of classes. San José has several small trains that circulate through the city as public transportation (along with an awesome bus system), and we had to cross the tracks every day to walk to the university. Now, what you have to understand is that Costa Ricans honk a lot. I mean, traffic can be sitting still at a red light, and someone will still honk insistently. So, as we neared the tracks that first day, we heard a loud horn and just assumed it was a bus. We ambled across the tracks, and not ten seconds later a train zipped by behind us. I remember looking over my shoulder and then just staring at her as we realized how narrowly we had escaped being hit. Needless to say, we looked both ways several times before crossing those tracks again lol.

I had roommates in college back in the day, but I was fortunate enough to only ever have people that I got along with fairly well. I would recommend talking about the big stuff sooner rather than later, because it probably won't get better if they don't know that it's an issue.

I'm trying to think of any favourite dorm stories. I don't have any horror stories, but one of my favourite memories is my roomate and I sitting in our room, e-mailing goofy stuff back and forth. I think I started it by sending her a picture of Harrison Ford as Han Solo, but I wrote something on it (using Paint, because I'm technologically advanced like that) about how Han and I were getting married or with Han threatening my roommate to be nicer to me or something along those lines that seemed hilarious at the time and the fun just escalated from there! It was the perfect kind of silly roommate moment.

EDIT: I just realized how perfectly this story fits with my avatar and signature right now!

People are scary, and probably want to kill you. My advice is to run now, or turn them into a cat.

KITTIES

(As you can tell, I have not had a roommate. Because who would deal being around me that much?)

Pirate Oriana wrote:(As you can tell, I have not had a roommate. Because who would deal being around me that much?)

Kittens would. So would dogs.

Whitty Whit wrote:

Pirate Oriana wrote:(As you can tell, I have not had a roommate. Because who would deal being around me that much?)

Kittens would. So would dogs.

cats. you might have to clean a litter box but at least they don´t pee on the floor if you don´t let them out on time.

sorry, I am a cat lover. There are alot of people I could have tolerated better in life if I could have turned them into cats...............why did I never think of that?

I had an actual roommate my first year of college. I technically knew her, although not very well.

It was an interesting experience considering I was the responsible one of the two of us and ended up babysitting her through her many drunken adventures. She liked to drink and then drive home. I didn't want to get a visit from the cops one day saying my roommate had died. So I drove her around to her parties. And got her out of a few situations that could have easily turned ... bad.

And then there was the one time she invited a TOTALLY RANDOM guy from MySpace TO our apartment without meeting him in a safe public space first.

Then I got married and moved out. >.>

I've had roommates for the past 2 years of uni. I would share stories, however, I'm the ghost roommate that you hear about. You'll see traces of me around the apartment, but I'm never there. So I never really had any conversations with my roommates. I actually talked to my friend a lot more in high school when we ate lunch together every day and hung out with each other that I did when we lived together. I literally just slept in my apartment and cooked all my food for the day between 6-7:45 in the morning when she was still sleeping and then I left and didn't come back until late.

I don't think my roommates really liked me, but that's okay because I did clean up after myself and do their dishes so yolo.

I'm going to be living with 3 girls next year and I anticipate it will be the same.
I will always be gone and then they'll forget I exist.

The last time I had a really good roommate was when I shared a room with my sister, years ago. Well, my roommates last semester weren't terrible. But the roommate the semester before was insane. Like, legitimately insane. She threw away all of my food in the refrigerator over spring break, claiming it was going bad. (It...really wasn't. Mostly it was eggs. EGGS.)

I don't really have any advice, unfortunately. I've just discovered over the years that I either have to live with people I like and know ahead of time (and there aren't many of those at my school), or that I need to live alone. I currently live alone in my room in the house here in Belfast, but I have a bunch of housemates. They really like partying.

I had a roommate last year. We got on fine most of the time, though we did have a few habits the other found irksome. Mostly it was our sleep schedules. As a computer scientist and a college student, I went to bed at about two or three in the morning while she slept on peacefully. And, as someone with an actual job, she woke up at about ten minutes to seven. And proceed to like, shower and blow dry her hair or something... >_>

We did have some fun moments though. I remember watching movies together on my clunky old laptop. I'd have to stream them online, and it would take ages for them to load. Then I'd have to make the ten-second plug switch from the living room socket to the bedroom socket. She'd run behind me with the laptop while I sprinted down the corridor and jammed the plug in the wall before my laptop could die. Very exciting.

This year I had housemates instead, which was a huge improvement! Probably the most fun (and most insane) year I ever had. Remind me to relate some of the crazier anecdotes sometime...

I've had roommates for the last three years of university, and I had a great experience with my most recent one. Some fond memories I have are getting pizza together, praying for each other, and listening to various episodes of AIO.