Who remembers awkward snuggling!?

No matter if your school is comprised of baseball caps or plaid shirts, pearls or feather earrings, Big 10 football or frolf; there are some stories from college that cease to differ. When you put thousands of kids aged 18-22 in a close proximity for four years, there are going to be repeat offenses and plenty of stories to tell from them. The list below is composed of the top 10 stories from your average college kid- the embarrassing, the awkward, and (unfortunately) the frequent.

1. Omg well MY roommate…
Even if you and the roommates become best buds for life, there is always that one annoying thing he or she does that always manages to come out when you’re studying for your Biological Anthropology final. These habits could range from moderately annoying (like replaying the same 4 songs on loop at a creepily quiet level) to excruciatingly annoying (like sexiling you every night for two weeks straight, and leaving the proof everywhere). We’ve all got our stories, and we all love to one-up each other in conversations arguing over who had it worse.

2. Sloppy drunk you don’t remember
Again, I understand there are exceptions to this one as well. There are the few [lame] college students who do not touch a drink during their four years at college. However, for the rest of us, the majority has at least one story where we completely embarrassed ourselves in a drunken haze of a night. Whether it’s public vomiting or humiliating declarations, there are probably stories better left forgotten. Which brings me to my next story…

3. The awkward hook up
…pretty self explanatory. It’s the guy or girl you meet randomly a night out, s/he seems pretty cute and s/he is giving pretty obvious signs. You figure, why not? It’s college after all! Except the hookup wasn’t so great, you find out he/she was hooking up with one of your friend’s friends and they’re still kind of together, or in the middle you completely forget his/her name. I could go on and on and on…so many bad things can happen. Mostly likely you’ll have multiple (albeit, hilarious) stories. Which also leads to… (can you just notice my awesome flow for a sec?!)

4. Eye contact game
…awkward eye contact! Sorry if I sound strangely excited about this one- it’s my favorite to talk about. College is ALL about knowing when and when not to make eye contact with someone. We all play this strange little game where our “best friend” from the night before is approaching and we’re not sure if this person even remembers meeting us. What do we do? We avoid, avoid, avoid. Look at that fascinating pebble, leaf, or …sky? Someone probably texted you, you should check. If you forgot your phone, you should probably look through your bag for it. However, sometimes we can’t be so sly or we’re caught off guard. This is the time when you give the weak half-smile that you would give to any other stranger, giving them the opening to make a move, or to say “hi” (probably not though). Which also leads me to…

5. Pretentious, (so naturally) scary professor
… okay yeah, my good flow kind of ends here. This one is a little less scandalous. But everyone I have talked to has at least one story of a professor who was completely full of it. The professor that thought his class was the only one you were taking and you obviously wanted to spend all your free time writing that 20 page paper and studying for the midterm that was all due in a week. The professor whose office hours you’re afraid to go to (even though he tells you he “won’t bite”) and whose class you were even more afraid of making a sound in because Prof. Scary has written five books, all of which he assigns and all of which you haven’t read.

6. Staying up too late doing work and slowly losing your sanity
These are the moments where you really hope college pays off. You spend all night studying for those three midterms- and in exchange you lose a little bit of your soul…or sanity. This is usually exaggerated when friends surround you and you have someone who’s losing his/her soul and sanity right by your side as well.

7. Skipping class just ‘cuz
Whether it’s from a bad hangover, 30 degree weather or just sheer laziness, we’ve all had those moments where we want to exercise our freedom from accountability in high school and skip class just because we can. And why not? Those slides are put online anyway and no one will notice if 1 in 400 is missing.

8. Ditching the crazy friend
In the beginning of freshmen year, we’re all so desperate and nervous to make friends that we base these new-found friendships on proximity. The closer the classmates are to us, the faster we become their friends. However, as I’ve found out through my years in college, location is not the best indicator of a bffl. Everyone can relate to befriending someone who seemed normal at first, but then became really crazy really fast, or just batshit insane. It happens. By second semester you probably don’t even acknowledge that person on campus. And you know what? That’s okay.

9. “Almost” getting busted pregaming
This story mostly applies to freshmen year. You’re so excited to finally be in college and are ready to go crazy. You want to go out every night and you don’t care who knows! …Except maybe your socially awkward RA. There’s always at least one time when your pregame gets a little too loud for comfort and there’s a knock on the door. Is it the RA? Is it just another drunken friend wandering in? Either way everyone is shushed, hides his or her drinks (that’s gonna work), and turns down the music. Whether it is the friend or the RA, whether one gets busted or not, everyone has the story where it was “such a close call…we almost were written up!”

10. Eating your anxieties, excitements and failures
This is probably another one of my personal favorites and probably one I can relate easiest to. There was a moment freshman year when I realized that I forgot what it felt like to be hungry. Seriously. Between unlimited dining dollars and a constant supply of snacks stashed under the bed; mindless eating freshman year (and sometimes beyond) might be the most common story of all…and the weight-gain that quickly followed.

So – how are you? I’m probably the last person that you want to hear from but I want you to know that I’ve changed. Please just hear me out.

Before I started college, I remember hearing third and fourth hand stories about crazy roommates (You know those stories – I don’t need to summarize any of them for you). Because of those stories, I went into the dorms worried about the crazy that I might encounter, never once thinking that I could ever BE that storied roommate.

But as it turns out, I was indeed that person. On behalf of the crazies who realize that they were the crazy and the crazies who are still not aware of what their crazy is doing to their roommates, I am truly sorry and I hope that you can accept my/our apology.

Specifically to my freshman year roommates, A. and R., I apologize for coming back to our room in the middle of the night and drunkenly puttering around in the darkness. I truly believed that I was being quiet, but I only realize now that my quiet when I’m drunk equals ‘wake-you-up’ loud to unintoxicated ears.

Thank you for not yelling at me each time that I woke you up; I have a feeling that checking my neck for hickey status distracted you from your anger. Remember that first weekend of school when we knew each other for 37 hours and I came back with a neck full of them and I had no idea until you marched me over to the mirror to see for myself? I guess that started the neck checks, huh?

To R., I’m sorry that I let some random guy sleep in my bed after a fire drill and that A. and I left you alone in the room as you slept. Due to the damage done by the actual fire in the building, he really couldn’t go back to his room. Since A. and I weren’t going back to sleep and we totally knew his first name from going to the parties at Phi Sig, we figured that it would be okay. Thank you for not kicking our asses and somehow laughing it off.

A. and R., I’m sorry that I sexiled you that one time. Serves me right – I totally got none that night. By that point, I’d sucked so much as a roommate that you both washed your bedding just in case I did hit it on your sheets. To clear my name a bit, just because I had like 1000 condoms (half of which were flavored) didn’t mean that I was having that much sex; I won them at condom bingo, I swear.

Also, I’m sorry that I took up half of the closet space and an entire dresser and still complained that I had no clothes to wear. I know that you cared immensely about my wardrobe; you kind of had to – it also was all over the room since I changed twice a day.

To A., I’m sorry that I flirted with every single one of your guy friends when they visited you. I was a full-blown attention whore and I hope that you noticed that when you and T. were dating that I totally steered clear of him.

To my sophomore year roommates, L. and J. – well, I’m not really sorry because I don’t like either one of you, but I do realize the error of my ways. Considering the things that I did to A. and R., I really did try to avoid mixing my room with boys, so I usually wouldn’t come back to the room all weekend. As it turns out, that wasn’t better.

Thank you for lying to my mom and telling her that I was at the gym when she called on Saturday or Sunday mornings.

Also, while I’m pissed that you stopped giving me my messages, I understand the need to unplug the phone before going bed on many nights. Despite the fact that you told your friends that I was sleeping with all of them, clearly I didn’t know many of the guys who were calling if they were using the student directory to get in touch with me.

I give you the same apology regarding the closet space and my clothes. There was no need to change three or four times a day and you both unfortunately fell victim to my bouts of outfit related schizophrenia because my stuff was Ev.Ry.Where.

And by sophomore year, I still hadn’t learned the lesson regarding sound and drunkenness, so I apologize for waking you up at least every other night, stomping on our tiled floor with heels on to find my PJs, to get all of my clothes and books off of the bed and to look for my face wash and hair brush.

To J., I’m sorry that when L. was away one night that after your shower that you were a victim of a surprise sexile. I honestly thought that you were staying at your boyfriend’s dorm that night and it really was the only time that I did anything like that in our room.

I don’t know whose beer it was, but I’m sorry that my study group drank all of it that one time I had them over. I probably should have offered to replace it, huh?

Also, to J., I understand that it wasn’t cool for girls to be friends with me outside of the like three that I had, so thank you for being nice to me when we were alone because it helped me deal with how you acted with L. or anyone else in your group. You called me a lot of things that you thought I never heard; I never told you that your voice carried down the hall and that the few times that I was studying in the dorm I heard everything that you’d said.

My only saving grace with J. and L. was that I knew tons of guys on campus, which meant that if I was being nice that I could get them into all of the cool and sometimes secret parties. Because they must have figured out that I kept the bowls crusted with oatmeal out on my desk only to gross them out. I wasn’t there anyway, so what did I care?

So though my apology to them was tempered with “I didn’t like them anyway”, I do wish that I hadn’t interrupted their sleep so much and that I hadn’t taken over the room in which I barely spent any of my time. I might have actually ended up with a friend or two out of those living arrangements.

In conclusion: I’m not asking you normal roommates to forgive the crazy ones. Just know that they will one day realize the shit that they put your through and whether you’ll know it or not, they will feel badly about it.

Signed,

Melissa “I may have sucked, but you came of it with some cool stories” the Former Shitty Rommate