How To Turn Your Roommate Into Your Best Friend And/Or Henchwoman

Allow us to present you with a hypothetical situation. In this hypothetical situation, you are a typical suburban housewife. You have the two kids, the husband, the mini-van with the little stick figure family in the back window—life is good. Then, gradually, you begin to feel uneasy in your own home. There’s this constant nagging feeling that someone is watching you, even when there’s no one there. There’s a funny smell that you just catch a vague whiff of once in a while. You’re pretty sure that there was more organic, all-natural peanut butter (you’re a health conscious mother, in this scenario) in the jar last night than there is this morning. The final straw is when you think you hear noises coming through the air vents, even though your whole family is in the living room watching Full House together. You call the police. They do a search of your house and discover that a drunk vagrant has set up shop in your attic, and he’s probably been there for months without you noticing. In fact, the police tell you, he’s been living there for so long that he now has a legal right to inhabit your attic, and you’re just going to have to deal with it because he’s not leaving.

New roommate is excited to move out of his boxcar and into your attic!

Surprise! That hobo is exactly like getting a roommate in college. You’re not really sure you want them around, they steal your food, and they probably don’t shower often enough. You certainly didn’t get to pick them. Regardless, you’re now going to have to find some way to get along with one another, because the police told you so.

This is where we come in. We were successful roommates for four years (like, in the same room roommates, so suck on that) and we have lots of helpful tips on how to make things go smoothly. Let’s get started!

Meeting a new roommate can be
as awkward as this picture

1. Make a bad first impression. This sounds counter-intuitive, but it really helps. There are plenty of ways to make a bad first impression on your roommate. When she tries to friend you on Facebook, ignore her friend request for long enough that she starts to sweat a little. Send her emails that make you sound like an idiot—like, maybe you can tell her about that time that you accidentally crossed the border into Canada without even having your drivers’ license on you. Be really crabby on the day you first move into the dorms. It’s all about setting the bar really low going into your initial in-person encounter. That way, it’s all uphill from there! Even if you have annoying habits, she’ll just be thankful that you don’t suck as much as she thought at first. Plus, if you end up being friends, you’ll have lots of fun stories to laugh about and tell people in the future.

2. Ask the tough questions. It's natural to be curious about the person you are about to share a room and a mini-fridge with. All roommates inevitably learn some small facts about each other, e.g. family background, weird eating habits, and favorite music. To have a really successful roommate-ship, though, you have to dig deeper. You can learn a lot by asking, for example, "If you could be any black woman for a day, who would you pick and why?" or "Code Blue?" An average roommate knows your eye color, a good roommate knows your dog's name, but a great roommate knows which hockey player you plan to marry. Questions can lead to equally heated debates on which post-colonial African president was the best or which Bachelor contestant is the craziest. Understanding your roomtart's interests can only bring you closer together (unless you hate his/her interests, then you're probably screwed.)
3. Say what's on your mind. Sometimes, being honest about what you're thinking can be really hard. After all, even if you have a big blow-up confrontation, you still have to live with that person, and then you run the risk of having them pee in your favorite shoes or something. Still, it's good to air things out. If you just silently fume about all of the little things that bother you, they'll just build up until you can't stand each other anymore, and that's no fun. So, if your roommate makes borscht in your carpeted kitchen and then leaves all of the million dishes, just politely ask him/her to do them! If her drunk cousins and his friends are loudly playing beer pong on your porch while you want to sleep, just tell them to shut up! (Let's be real, she's too drunk to really remember how you phrased it in the morning, so this time you don't have to be as polite.) And if she gets all uppity about going to study in North Quad, feel free to put that girl in her place.

Salmonella is for the weak

4. Bake together. I don't mean this in a marijuana related way, although this might also be a bonding experience. Better than any drug is the magic of brownies. There's a special form of communion created when you gather with your roomsicle(s) over a steaming pan of barely cooked desserts with nothing but spoons and the love you share. Some roommates have made the mistake of taking a box of brownie mix and following all of the directions. This is wrong. Once you know how much oil and eggs to add, throw that box away. Actually recycle it, because global climate change is real. Brownies/cakes/cookies not meant to be solid. Healthy roommate relationships are formed over hot, liquid desserts that represent the warm love that flows between two individuals.

Always be sure to look your best
for your events. Also,note that a good hench
woman allows you to ride on her back.

5. Invent Holidays and Events. If you live according to a normal calendar where your birthday only comes once a year and the holidays are few and far between, your life is a travesty. Celebrate half birthdays, quarter birthdays, 5/6 birthdays, the fact that Taylor lives here, June Day (Best Day), host an event called Dinner., have an ugly sweater party, have a toga party at which someone will bite lime and then be upset about it. Celebrations are happy, so many celebrations means you will have a happy household! And if you can somehow con the pre-med frat at your university into thinking that hosting parties at your house is a good idea, then life is all the better. They will bring the alcohol and you can steal a gallon of vodka, which you can later add Skittles to so you can taste the rainbow. (Which is kind of like baking. Look at how our tips correlate with one another!) Anyway, the point is, celebrate everything--including the fact that your roommate is awesome!

6. Have secrets. There is nothing that brings people together more than leaving other people out. Is that mean? Well we never said friendship was nice. To solidify your one-of-a-kind relationship with your roommate(s), it's important to have many inside jokes and perhaps even a secret language so that in a large group, it is clear that your friendship is better than everyone else's. This is a tricky step in the bonding process for several reasons. One, you cannot force a good secret. Work your way up to it in conversation (this goes along with asking questions) until your roommate is eventually spilling their guts to you and you alone. Also, sharing these special moments and memories will make people jealous of you, which is a good thing, but you don't want them to hate you. Good roommates have other friends, too, and these are the people you complain about your roommate to. The secret codes and knowing looks shared between roommates in a group setting must be kept to a minimum. Unless the roommates are in a group of people they don't much care for, in which case you should ignore everyone else and be really weird together, perhaps making drunken snowflakes or dancing by yourselves.

Happiness guaranteed

It is natural to be nervous when you get assigned a roommate for college, find a stranger to live with on Craig's list, or inevitably are forced to cohabitate with the smelly peanut butter thief in your attic. With these simple directions, though, all that awkwardness will quickly transform itself in the cocoon of your small shared space into a beautiful friendship that will last a lifetime, or at least until your youngest child turns 18 and your roommate is no longer bound in service to you as a live in nanny.

You're welcome ♥ Taylor & Christine

Taylor Teaches

Hi everyone! You may remember me from when I was sick with mono. Don't worry, I survived it. I did have a Facebook status from around that time that said, "All I do is sleep," though, so you can tell it was rough.

Anyway, in a surprise change-up, I went from living with Teener to living with Teener's parents! They are really mean to me, and even shut off the vents in my room in an attempt to freeze me to death. Haha, just kidding! They are actually very nice to me, except for occasionally going on vacation to Florida and not inviting me.

My sentiments exactly, Stephanie. 

Anyway, the reason that I'm living with them is because I (temporarily) have a job very near where her parents live! How coincidental! Except not, because the job was long-term subbing for Teener's sister. So essentially, I took Maureen's job AND am living with her parents. It's like I stole her life.

This is the image I found when I Googled "Life-Stealer." Eerie, because this is the exact face I made when some of my juniors thought that personification could be a motif.

The long-term subbing is over, but I am still working at the school until Christmas break as a graduate assistant--which means that I fill in for teachers who are gone, supervise lunch, grade lots of things, help organize events, and tutor kids after school and sometimes during lunch. It's way less fun than teaching, but I'm happy to still be at the school because I love it there. I could literally talk to you all day non-stop about my kids and how much I love them, but I'm pretty sure that non-educators get bored of those stories, so instead I will just tell you my top five most exciting things that happened while I was teaching. Like a highlight reel, if I will. 

Which I will. I'm counting down even though these are in no particular order of excitement.

Ms. Glinski, reuniting families since 2013.

5. I made a mom cry at parent-teacher conferences.

It wasn't full-fledged crying, more like teary eyes, but still. And it also wasn't for bad things! She was crying because I was telling her a sweet story about how her son bought me cheesecake for my birthday. Apparently, she felt that she had been neglecting him recently, and my story reminded her that she really did love him after all.

4. I got to teach history!

American studies, to be exact. This might not sound exciting to some people, but since history was my second certification and I didn't student teach in it, it was a really good experience. I found out that I love it and that I would be willing to teach it as a for real, permanent teacher. My favorite thing was having debates. Being a history teacher also helped me bond with one of the juniors I had for English, since he is crazy about history and especially about America. At first, I was worried this kid was going to be trouble, but then he told me about his passionate love for Herbert Hoover, and now we are besties. (He's still wrong, though. Hoover sucks.)

I also enjoyed encouraging them to laugh at the expense of fat historical figures.

3. I chaperoned a school dance. 

Not school appropriate TBH

It was the Halloween dance. I somehow got roped into promising my juniors that if enough of them bought tickets, I would dress up and they could pick my costume. They decided I would have to be Hamida, a character from the book we were reading at the time. If you've never read Midaq Alley, just know that Hamida runs away to become a prostitute. Luckily, not enough of them bought tickets, so I just got to attend as myself.

2.  I got to welcome in a new class of freshman. 

Answer: Not unless that Egyptian time-traveled here from 3000 BCE.

This was fun because new freshman are hilarious. They are so excited and sweet and it's fantastic. They are also ridiculous. My freshman were probably the ones who were the most dedicated to me, because they had never met Maureen, so the transition was kind of traumatizing for them. One of them told me, "I'm going to tell Ms. Convery you're my favorite teacher so she feels awkward." I think Maureen won her over by promising free writes during journal time, though--freshman allegiance is fairly easy to obtain. Another welcomed Maureen on her first day by saying "I hate the new teacher" while he was unaware she was in the room. (They hasn't actually met yet, so she was more amused than offended.) And, on an unrelated note, one asked me during class if Egyptian people still write in hieroglyphics.
. 

1. I had many, many going-away parties. (Even though I was staying.)
Kids brought cookies, balloons, cupcakes, cards, etc. It was overwhelming and cute and very difficult not to cry. Like I said, these kids were super fantastic and amazing, and I kind of wish I could just freeze us all in time and keep them forever. Now that I'm a grad and I have more free time, that's actually the project I'm working on, when I'm not blogging. Well, either that or I watched like 6 episodes of "The Following" today.