5 Roommates That Get You Out More Often (A.K.A. Suck)

Some of us got lucky when we moved in. We had friendly, personable roommates who respected our space and kept us sane through finals week. Some of us ended up in one-room hell for a year. There are as many ways for a roommate to suck as there are humans on the planet, but here’s a few standout stinkers:

The Social Drinker

Or, in other words, the roommate that’s only social when she’s drunk. You spend the whole day together, share the same bathroom, use the same shelf for your snacks, and probably own the same deodorant, but the only things you say to each other all day will be “I’m going to class” and “Mind if I get the light?” You don’t hate each other or even dislike each other, but somehow you never seem to have a conversation longer than fifteen seconds. Unless it’s Thursday evening and she’s into the vodka, of course. Then she’s your best friend, and she always wonders why you guys never talk, why she’s never gotten to meet all your cool friends, how much she hated that stupid haircut you had at orientation, and eventually she passes out and you don’t speak to each other for another week.

The Invisible Woman

You know she exists, because you saw her parents on move-in day, and the pile of laundry in her hamper sometimes varies in size. But she’s never in the room when you come back from class, she’s never brushing her teeth or taking a shower, and nobody ever comes looking for her. There’s the empty shell of a human life: bed always made, textbooks neatly lined up on the bookshelf, television never turned on. Your room feels like it’s being haunted, as if there’s some presence only half there. Sometimes you see her outside, chain-smoking and looking waifish.

The Hermetically Sealed Hermit

Sure, it’s nice to have a studious roommate. You can get work done when you need to, and you probably won’t come home on Sunday morning to find three naked people you’ve never met before passed out in your bed. But sometimes the zone of silence becomes a little too much: would you mind turning off that fan? Would you mind not chewing gum? Would you mind turning your pages with less rustling? Would you mind going across the hall and telling the room full of rugby players to body-slam each other through the drywall a little more gently?

The Apologetic Freeloader

Being the scrupulous, Type-A half of the arrangement, you were careful to bring a comprehensive selection of snacks in the fall. And because you’re also the easy-going, accommodating one, you were happy to loan them out to your hungry roommate when her busy schedule kept her running with no time to grab lunch. And she was always very nice about it, “Oh, I’m sorry, I’ll make it up to you, I know-”

“No, no, it’s fine, don’t worry about it,” you tell her.

And you love her to death, but now it’s April and she’s eaten maybe a hundred dollars worth of your Oreos, and she’s still really cute and fun abut it, but damnit, those were your Oreos. “I’m so sorry! I’m a mess, really, I’m a terrible roommate-” Well, yeah. Yeah. You are.

The Very Best Friend

College can be a lonely place at first, so you were really happy when you and your roommate hit it off so well. You were welcome to get drunk and lost with that first Friday night. And you just get closer from there; turns out you like the same bands, have the same major, dig the same take-out place. But one day, you wake up and realize: oh my God. This girl follows me around like a dog every weekend, she sits me down and blabbers about her bizarre emotional problems the moment I walk in the door, she snuggles with me on my bed when she feels lonely and I’m trying to study. I’ve gotten married and I’m not even getting any tax breaks.

Any other horrors I forgot?