By: Emily Nassi (University of Delaware)
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Whether you picked them or not, sometimes living with a roommate can go horribly awry. Here are some signs that tell you it’s time to move out.
1. He or she immediately clings to your friends
The first sign that your roommate may be terrible is that she does not seem to have any other friends, and therefore takes on to always hanging out with you and your friends. It gets even worse when she starts making plans with them and doesn’t include you, although often occurs later on.
2. He or she sneaks in saying mean things about you to other people, or your face.
Occasionally those friends she clings on to will tell you a story about yourself after your roommate has complained to them. Or, she will say things such as “no offense, but you run weird.” Don’t be fooled by the “no offense” introduction, she’s just trying to cover all her bases.
3a. He or she never leaves the room
Sometimes, all you want is a little alone time since you’re usually around people the majority of the day. But this is never possible since your roommate is always sitting on her bed on Facebook looking at stupid websites and watching awful television shows. She has no other friends besides yours, which is why she hardly ever leaves. This can be super frustrating.
3b. He or she never leaves because she’s always napping
You are productive college student, always with a full schedule, working, studying, going to the gym, etc. At the end of the day, all you want to do is go back and watch some TV and catch up on whatever else. But your roommate is always asleep, which makes doing these things impossible. And you won’t be as rude as he or she is….yet.
4. He or she is a messy slob with terrible hygiene habits.
College students don’t have a lot of time, which is why rooms sometimes get messy. But your roommate takes it to a new level. Dirty laundry thrown across an unmade bed, eventually making its way onto the floor. Your roommate leaves out food or dirty bowls from three days ago. He or she also does not brush his or teeth everyday, and also believes wearing the same pair of workout spandex for 3 days straight without taking a shower is sanitary. Eventually you begin to notice this pattern, and it creeps you out.
5. He or she never does his or her own schoolwork, but then asks you for yours.
I don’t think I need to explain this one.
6. You do plenty of favors for your roommate, only for them not to be returned
Your roommate has a formal but it’s raining and he or she doesn’t want to walk to where the bus is. You drive her. Your roommate is sick and needs to go to the doctor. Your busy, but you drive her. Your roommate asks for you, the journalism major, to look over her paper for class. You have lots of your own work to do, but you do it.
You need to move back to your room after spring break, and ask to borrow her car (that she’s not using) to move your stuff back. This way you don’t have to walk all the way from one end of campus to another. Your roommate says no to borrowing the car. Cue angry eye twitching.
7a. He or she hooks up with someone in the room…while you’re there
You decided not to go out because you have work in the morning, and go to bed around 1. At 4:30, you’re woken up to lights being turned on, doors opening and other sounds. Still groggy, you try to figure out what is happening. You quickly figure it out after hearing (and maybe even seeing) your gross unhygienic roommate and this other person. This goes on for two hours. All you want to do is cry. The situation is so awkward you can’t think rationally about what to do.
7b. After keeping you up for two awful hours, they decide to talk.
At this point, you get up, walk out of the room while muttering some profanities under your breath and pace around the hall for a while. In the morning you proceed to turn on every light in your room, slam all your drawers, and stomp around. It takes all your willpower not to strangle both of them.
7c. The roommate tries to blame it on you.
This is it. You’ve put up with every other evil thing she’s done and all you want it an apology, which you don’t get. Hopefully you haven’t let it get this far, and have moved out already, but this is when you break off all connection and never look at them again.
