With empty pockets full of dreams and head in the clouds, you have the time of your life. And you owe it not to Bill Medley, but to college. So all those over hyped articles you’ve read on the internet that go into raptures about the glories of college life are not a pack of lies, after all. But the one thing that can make or mar your life in college, so to speak, is your roommate, and a bad roommate is always a bummer. Read on to know more about the ten roommates you are likely to have in college.
- The Stink Bomb Roommate
This roomamte should probably hang up a notice of some kind to spread the word about the oncoming stink onslaught.
At any given point of time, you’ll find them gorging on a slice of cold pizza, lolling on their bed which, I bet, is bathed in year old grease. Their side of the room is, best described, a scaled-down version of a sanitary landfill, with bottles of coke, pizza boxes, half-eaten burgers and cockroach infested chicken wings strewn carelessly on the floor. And the cleaning lady won’t come anywhere near a mile of this mountain of a mess. They can go for days without changing clothes or getting out of bed, which makes you wonder if they’ve ever taken a shower. And more importantly, how come this place hasn’t been declared an endangered, epidemic prone area yet? Seriously dude, ever heard of something called a trash can? More like, throwing away leftovers and not feeding it to the ghoul under your bed?
- The Neat Freak
This one’s the complete anti-thesis to the one above. If your roommate has more cleaning equipments than books, you know you’ve got yourself one. You’ll find them arranging and re-arranging the bookshelf, the shoe rack, the kitchen cabinet, and pretty much anything they can get their hands on, on an average of, say, five times a day. And if you are the kind to leave things around, then you my friend, are on the highway to hell! Surely, their cleaning habits are going to rub off on you at some point, but God save your sorry ass if you ever leave the T.V. remote one inch displaced from where it’s ‘supposed to be’. Or curl up on your bed without washing your feet and drying them on the floor mat, well because it is a ‘truth universally acknowledged’ that:
Unwashed feet = Bringer of apocalypse.
The only upside to having this fastidious Nazi for a roommate is that you get to come home to a pristine paradise of a bed smelling of soap and lavender!
- What’s Yours is Mine and What’s Mine is Mine
This one’s a serial borrower, and by borrower, I mean a taker. They think, wait, think? No, believe they have a legitimate right to freeload, ahem, borrow your stuff, mostly never to return them. But ask for a pencil, and get a stern ‘no’ thrown in your face. You rummage your shelves for that Pratchett you’ve been meaning to read, which isn’t there of course! And the very next day it’s back atop the shelf, dog-eared, and with every third page plastered in pickle. Why, thank you for soiling my book roomie!
Be sure to lay a few ground rules with this one. Let them know that they are stepping off boundaries when things get out of hand. The key here is to communicate. Chances are, they might have never been told that their habits can come off as annoying or irksome to people. Or they might fly off the handle and start a fight. But don’t let that possibility keep you from taking your chances on this one.
- The Right Stroppy Cow
This is not a roommate. This is a monster. A cross between a Hungarian Horntail and a Cerberus. From you eating the leftover pizza from the day before, to you singing in the shower, or you trying to remind them that it’s their turn to do the dishes, they always, without a single exception, will pick a fight. The number of times this person picks a fight in a day, and for such ridiculous reasons at that, makes you wonder if you’re secretly being taped to be aired on an episode of ‘The Real Roommates of New Alipore’
- Privacy, what’s that?
This one just keeps inviting people over. Expect their college friends, school mates, distant relatives, or just random strangers to show up at your door and crash for the night..err..nights on end. Don’t be surprised to find them there, making themselves at home, even in your roommate’s absence.
Picture this: you’ve had an especially hard day at work or college and come home to find about a dozen people, some swaying to loud music, others busy making out, completely oblivious to the fact that it’s your bed they are spilling food on. Ugh..CAN YOU NOT! Asking them to pipe down or showing them the door won’t get you anywhere, apart from a dozen cold shoulders and a week’s worth of stink eyes.
- The Rumor Queen Roommate
Do you know what a prude that Priya is? Or heard about Lily’s new boyfriend? Or that dude Sushma was shamelessly hitting on yesterday? No? Why then, surely you haven’t met the uncontested and undisputed queen of rumour. This is one person whom people in your dorm dread the most, more than the Hungarian Horntail perhaps.
Keep them close and you’ll never be bored with all their portmanteau of outrageous tales. Step off on the wrong foot and find your college life in shambles. The trick here is steer clear of their company. If you are stuck with this godforsaken Rita Skeeter of a nosy bugger for a roommate, curse your luck, keep to yourself and indulge in as little as you possibly can to this person. Or you might try knowing the person better, getting into their skin as they say, but odds are that it won’t get you anywhere.
- The Yakkity Yak
So your roommate is relatively normal, isn’t creepy or foul-mouthed, is easy to get along with, and you naturally find assuring yourself that you have been spared the noose of a terrible roommate after all! But two weeks into the deal and you know you’ve gotten yourself into a spectacular pickle.
Because a talker is without a doubt, the most annoying of the lot. Ask them for a pen, and they’ll keep you tied up in the most inane conversation possible on the face of the earth. Subtlety just does not work with a fella of this kind, because even if you keep dropping subtle hints like “Will that be all?” s/he might just take a detour and embark on another of their supremely banal conversations.
Since you don’t want to be the ‘bad guy’ here, it might be advisable to search for a leeway to slip out of the conversation just when the time is right. And if all else fails, plug in your earphones and nod your assent to everything s/he says.
- Hullabaloo in the Hostel Corridors
- Cobain blaring at the highest possible volume- check
- Drum beats that could wake the dead- check.
- Alarm meant more for a Neanderthal than a human-check.
Bang your head against the wall and punch your teddy in the gut, because you’ve got a *loud drumbeats* noisemaker for a roommate. This is one roommate who will take your sleep and stab it in the heart, with their tuneless strumming of guitar at wee hours of the morning and odd hours of the afternoon.
With this one too, make sure to lay a few ground rules. If they listen to music that is not to your liking, suggest that they use headphones. Or ask nicely if you could have some quiet since you’ve had a quite a long day. Being polite can be surprisingly effective at times.
- The Pompous Old Windbag
If you are stuck with a show-off, you still are far better off than being stuck with the monsters listed above. They are probably kind at heart, but owing to the utter lack of anything of interest to talk about, they resort to vapid little boasts about their high and mighty selves. And thanks to their richer-than-thou sermons, you now know that Victoria Beckham doesn’t own Victoria’s Secret after all. Who knew?!
- The Best Friend
If you have found your best friend in your roommate, you should thank your lucky stars, for this almost never happens. From trying out new places to eat, to binge-watching ‘New Girl’ over the weekends, to the numerous (failed) attempts at making risotto, and the subsequent realization that overpriced khichdi with a fancy name is just not worth the hassle, all while whining about how perpetually broke you are, has led you to believe that you are essentially the same person, trapped in two bodies. All too often, this is the ‘one (roommate) who gets away’, but if you give the perfect-one-getting-away curse a miss, you should probably move your lazy bum and do pro-bono work to make-up for the immaculate luck you have been blessed with.
Last Updated on by Laveleena Sharma