College was a fantastic time in my life, but it certainly didn’t start off that way. Firstly, my mother contrived to stick me into an all-male dorm under some silly notion that I wouldn’t get into trouble. Truth be told, guys who live in coed dorms tend to be a lot more civilized than their animal counterparts in all-male dorms–but I guess that’s water under the bridge at this point.

Secondly, I had not one, not two, but THREE roommates, in what they called a “quad” (which was basically a slightly larger room–nowhere NEAR the same amount of square footage per person). Granted, I was a total nerd and a basket case (from never having to share personal living space as I grew up), but these guys were assholes, too. The nerd blood was in the water on day one–and these guys clearly relished in making my life miserable.

One of the aggravating factors was that I resisted partying with my roommates, which they correctly interpreted as a snub. They were able to get back at me, though. One night I got totally smashed with my friends, and paid the price in the hall bathroom (in these dorms, there was only one large shared bathroom per hall). The bathroom was a locker-room type setup, with benches in front of the showers. Anyway, after my stomach was sufficiently emptied, I stumbled to one of the benches and passed out. My next memory was my three roommates standing over me with the exact same smile on their faces. One of them finally spoke:

“Hey, do you realize some dude’s naked, hairy ass was pressed on that bench? Your face is right up on it, dude!”

I passed out again, and I remember thinking “he has a point.”

My dorm roommate seemed like a good match for me. We had similar tastes in music and movies and sense of humor. We shared appliances (by that I mean she used mine) and she volunteered her wardrobe for borrowing. Then, slowly but surely, I noticed some cold shoulder tension. I don’t subscribe to the belief that it is better to live in silence than suffer an awkward, confrontational moment. My attributes don’t exactly fit-in in Southern California. I tried to be as nice as possible, but eventually it became unbearable. I talked to our suitemates and they weren’t forthcoming with any insight. I asked if they could join me in talking with her to help mediate the situation. They agreed, but when the time came, my suitemates were nowhere to be found. I discovered later that they thought it would be too uncomfortable so they warned her about it and fled.

I knew I needed to get it over with, so I asked her if we could talk. She proceeded with verbal diarrhea of all the things she hated about me. Apparently, she had hated me from the start.  All the concessions she had said were fine, but me staying up late, the day my boyfriend had put his suitcase on her side of the room, every Advil she had ever given me, those weren’t fine. Also, she never took out the trash because she wanted to see how long it would take me to do so (I had my own trash can) and she had been placing pieces of paper on the floor to see if I would pick them up. She was offended that I had tried to participate in conversations when her boyfriend was over and she couldn’t stand that I ate fatty foods. Finally, came her complaint that I’m the person who answers honestly when asked, “Do I look fat in this?” She explained that you’re supposed to say “No” and then stroke their ego with a complement.

I was upset, mostly because I was realizing that I was not going to be able to patch it up with her, but I was trying to listen patiently.  I fought back complaining about all of her annoying habits and simply asked why she had lied to me for so long. That was it. She exploded with anger at my accusing her of being a liar and starting screaming obscenities at me. Those were the last words we spoke to each other.

My best friend and I should’ve never moved in together. I ended up being in charge of cleaning everything because she wouldn’t and I’m a clean freak. She would buy tons of groceries and bring leftovers home from her parents and then they would sit in the fridge for months and months, eventually spoiling. I ended up being the one to have to clean the fridge out after asking her to multiple times.  She would leave dirty cups and bowls in her room until I went in to get them out because I realized half our dishes were missing. After that I made a habit of going in her room every so often to clean it out. She would also get fast food and put the trash in the bag in came it and leave that in her room for months.

She worked in the food industry and after she got home she would just take her clothes off that she worked in and leave them on the floor until every single uniform she owned was on the floor and then she’d consider washing them. I always just made sure to keep the door to her room shut when we had company because it was so disgusting and smelled awful. She bounced rent checks at least three times. All of the bills and utilities were in my name, so every month I would pay them and she would reimburse me for her half. The first few months she was on time but then she started getting later and later with them. I told her that I needed the money by the day the bill was due because I was paying for the bills in full out of my pocket until she paid me for her half and I couldn’t really afford it.  She still never really got the money to me on time.

The final straw? I bought some new shoes for a specific event that I was going to and stuck them in my closet. The night of the event I could not find them anywhere. I texted my roommate asking if she had borrowed them (we are different clothes sizes and shoe sizes so this was uncommon).  She texted me back saying she had not borrowed or seen them. A few weeks later I was in my closet, and there were the shoes I had been looking for before, but they had definitely been worn!  I was fuming and I didn’t even know what to say to her. I did end up confronting her about it and she just shrugged it off, saying that she was just embarrassed that she had taken them and she didn’t know they were new so she felt bad for wearing them. Eventually, she moved out, but since it was before me, I was the one left to clean everything. Her farewell present to me was a huge stain on her bathroom counter that took me half a can of Comet and hours of scrubbing to get out.

Things started well enough in our cheap, crappy apartment, but after about a month things got lame when my roommate started staying at her boyfriend’s place. You’d think having the place to myself would be great, but it was a little annoying. She’d come back long enough to tear the hell out of kitchen, leave her wet clothes in the washer, the kitchen table piled with her “crafts” of smelly glue-y yarn things, etc. I’d have to call her mobile repeatedly, leave messages to remind her rent was due on the first and demand she clean up her messes. I succeeded some of the time, but mostly she just ignored me, so I just gave up after a couple months of paying late rent fees and started looking for a new place.

The guys next door were pothead losers and usually kept to themselves. One time, when I walked by their door, they all came out, cat-calling, saying things like how I “sounded like a good time in the sack.” I was confused and pretty freaked out, so I reported them to the landlord. My roommate just happened to be there while I was talking to my mom on the phone about it and she started laughing and admitted that whenever she knew I wouldn’t be home, she and her boyfriend would come and have really loud sex in the living room and they liked how the guys could hear and would pound on the common wall. My roommate and her boyfriend were too chickenshit to do at his apartment, so they did it at mine. And then she had the gall to tell me that they always had sex on my cool rug.

The final straw was after the last time her mom came to visit late at night. Her mom was an alcoholic who would drink until she’d fight with her boyfriend, then walk miles to our place, barefoot and try to break into her daughter’s bedroom window to spend the night. This time she tried to break in I was asleep and I freaked out just like I did the other times, because I was all by myself and thought that I was going to be raped and murdered. After the initial panic let off and realized it was her again, I opened the window and let her into her daughter’s bedroom.

As I was walking back to my room to sleep, I could hear her complain about the state and smell of her daughter’s room and then she let out a blood-curdling scream. Apparently, the ceiling was leaking and instead of telling anyone about it, my roommate just stuck a large stockpot on her bed to catch the drip and left. By the time her mother threw herself on her bed, a week or so had passed. The pot was full of freezing water that dumped over and soaked the entire room and sobered her mom right up. Because of the damages, I never got my deposit back (I paid the entire deposit because she couldn’t afford it), but I was able to move out after the year lease expired.

I was a Very Worst Roommate to the poor normal girl assigned to share a dorm room with me. While I’m not sure what she found most traumatic, I’m sure that my sudden transformation from blonde social butterfly to black-haired, tattooed, punk rock bitch was a little sudden (it did take place over the course of one week, after all). Our beds were on opposite sides of the room, and there was literally a line where the pile of trash and dirty clothes ended, and her neat side began. I usually walked in and took a flying leap over the trash into my bed. She would often walk in on me smoking in our room (all of the campus was smoke-free), smoking pot in our room, or taking a nap with my female friend. I didn’t steal her stuff out of the fridge, but one day, I commented on how good the ice cream bars she and a friend were eating looked. I had been complaining about a weight gain recently, and the friend snidely said, “you shouldn’t have one if you’re so worried.” I threw a wooden hairbrush at her head and walked out. I actually threw stuff at the roommate as well. I also made fun of her for wearing make-up, caring what color bra went under what color shirt, and being involved in intramural leagues. While we managed to live with one another for the entire three quarters, it wasn’t until I regained some semblance of sanity that I realized how terrifying it must have been for her. We would never have been friends. When I saw her in a bar during our senior year, and we both pretended that we didn’t know each other.

I was my freshman dormmate’s Very Worst Roommate. I grew increasingly depressed as the semester wore on, and by Thanksgiving Break, I stopped going to my classes and became nocturnal, sleeping from around 8.00 a.m. until nightfall at 5.00 p.m. I’d take her food since I was hungry from only eating two meals a day: dinner in the dining hall when I woke up and breakfast before I went to sleep. I assured her that she could eat anything of mine but she wasn’t interested in sharing and I rarely ventured far enough to stock our fridge anyway. Plus, I was incredibly uncomfortable with her drinking underage but refused to admit it to her.

By the end, she tried to help by asking me about why I was sleeping so much and I’m pretty sure she told our RA, but I rebuffed his attempts to reach out to me because I was angry he let people drink on our floor. I dropped out after one semester and didn’t keep track of her, but every so often I’m tempted to track her down and tell her that after 8 years of attending a new college part time, I successfully dealt with my issues with depression and anxiety and graduated. It would hardly make up for it though!