Prolougue:  Our heroine clicked the button “Accept” and the roommate search was done.

Chapter One: When I went to college, there was one way to find a roommate- the college sent a questionnaire, we mailed it back, and a month before school began you received a name and an address. Welcome to your roommate. Now- there are all sorts of ways. Most of my daughter’s friends found roommates through their schools official Facebook page. Some ended up with friends of friends, or classmates from their High School.

Chapter Two: My Daughter’s school does it a little differently. Students fill out an online questionnaire and are then matched with about 30 people based on their answers to certain questions. You are then supposed to reach out to the people that interest you.

Chapter Three: Stress: OMG emailing total strangers? What do I say?

Chapter Four: You have the ability to write a “profile” a short paragraph that basically describes who you are. This is not mandatory, but my daughter did write one. She also had the expectation that the person she would room with would also have written one. So immediately upon receiving her matches, she was able to eliminate about fifteen names. She also eliminated anyone who appeared to be a partier- just not her thing.

Chapter Five: Stress- How do I know what answers are red flags?

Chapter Six: My daughter ended up sending notes to about ten people. Five responded. This annoyed her a little that some people didn’t even have the courtesy to respond back. Now, they could have had an issue with the system, some kids did. But really- how do you not respond at all…

Chapter Seven: Stress- What’s wrong with me that people don’t want to reply? Am I too uptight? Too urban? Too perky? Not perky enough? Do I look like a nerd?

Chapter Eight: She ruled out one girl right away. She just knew the fit wasn’t right.

Chapter Nine: Stress: Is she sure that girl wasn’t right? Am I basing it on that her social media profile pictures would not correspond with the person that I am?

Chapter Ten: Continual conversation with one girl who seems more social than her. Girl seems nice.

Chapter Eleven: Stress. This girl is really into the sorority thing. She almost went to Tulane and Ole Miss. Will she be too outgoing?

Chapter Twelve: Rule out nice, but probably too outgoing girl and concentrate on other three. All seem nice. All have much in common with our heroine.  Two of the three want to be lawyers. All on the history/government track.

Chapter Thirteen: Stress. One girl has almost no social media profile. Is this a red flag? Did she scrub her profile? Does she have a secret profile? Is she just out of the loop of a teenage girl? My gut instinct is saying No. But we’re oddly similar…

Chapter Fourteen: Our heroine has come to the realization that any of these three girls would be fine, even the low social media one. But she is still unsure if any one of them is better than another.

Chapter Fifteen: I, the Mother, is starting to get stressed because the deadline for a roommate is Monday and I don’t want her to get a completely random roommate. I want her to decide, because there’s that quote- the devil you know…. With these girls she already has an idea….do you want the great unknown?

Chapter Sixteen: My Mother is driving me crazy. Doesn’t she know how stressful this is?

Chapter Seventeen: One of the girls has popped the question: Will you be my roommate?

Chapter Eighteen: Stress. This girl seems fine. There’s no reason not to room with her. Why is it so daunting saying Ok? Maybe because I just got home from prom and I’ve been up over 24 hours straight and my feet hurt? My makeup stayed on great though.

Chapter Nineteen: Mother perspective- OMG just tell the girl yes or no. But remember tick tick tick

Chapter Twenty: Will literally live with Charles Manson and Ted Bundy clones just to get away from the crazy maternal roommate I have now

Chapter Twenty One: Did you accept her yet? It’s not fair, not letting her know.

Chapter Twenty Two: *&%$#@

Chapter Twenty Three: I make some sort of hand gesture to my daughter.

Final Chapter: A roommate is chosen- a very smart government major who wants to be a lawyer and is from Florida.

The End

But don’t worry: Sequel to follow….

57 thoughts on “Search For: Roommate”

  1. Whew… This book stressed me up more than my murder mysteries and even horror. Fingers crossed, all goes well for the young heroine and the creepy mother… Now she scared me more 😂😂😂

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  2. Sounds stressful. The best roommate I had in college was an Iranian woman studying engineering when I moved to the International Dorm. The worst: a young woman from Harlem who wouldn’t talk to me and would just focus on some imagined point over my head to speak with. I am not sure what displeased her the most about me: perhaps because I was from a small town, who knows but the alliance lasted 3 months despite my efforts to start a conversation in a small shared room.

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      1. I was very naive entering college and very open. My roommate experience opened my eyes wide. At that time, going to the International Dorm was considered off beat, so I guess I was ahead of the curve.

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      2. and my adviser was happy as most of the students wanted the “regular” dorms. I really enjoyed meeting the students from all over and it most likely influenced my decision to travel.

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  3. Worse thing was how my school chose my roommate. I’m glad your daughter had a more hands on approach. Here’s to hoping the stress will wind down!!!!

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  4. Wow. We were just assigned roommates at my college. No questionaires or anything. You just got a name and contact info a moth before classes so you could start to get to know one another and coordinate things to bring. Once you were a sophomore, you could choose your own roommate.

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      1. Hooray for that! I liked the randomness we had. It really made you get to know different people and learn to compromise with people who were different. Two of my high school friends were in the same dorm as I was, and if it had been up to me at the time, I would have spent all my time with them and missed out on some great relationships.

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  5. So stressful but so important to have the right one. I’m glad that delimma is over for her. My stepdaughter had a partier for a roommate last year and it wasn’t easy for her because my stepdaughter doesnt drink. Next year she was able to get her own room. Good luck to the both of you.

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  8. At least you won’t have to go through this on repeat with other kids. I felt stress returning with the memories this post conjured up and my three are well away from college roommates at this point.
    I had the horror stories with the oldest daughter until she moved into a campus row house with mostly normal kids. My son actually met is now wife living in his first dorm. The last daughter wouldn’t even live on campus, but luckily her older and now married sister lived 10 minutes from school and had an extra bedroom…

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    1. Ahhh….my daughters school requires that they live on campus the first two years. And my kid wants a roommate, but you know….

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  10. Oh my – this takes me down memory lane. My daughter had random picks her first year. SHE was the nightmare roommate – messy, partier, sorority girl. My heart went out to her roomies. Then she roomed with a high school BFF & sorority sister. Two Type A competitive girls in one apartment- not the best fit at times. Then another sorority sister and her senior year a house with three others. That was her best situation.

    The funniest thing is when she ended up in a studio by herself in med school, she realized what a horrible roommate she was. 🤣🤣🤣

    Hopefully it’s made her a better wife. 😍. All this to say that roommates are part of growing up. She’ll figure out how to live with someone who may not be her BFF and that’s a great life lesson. Congrats on this next step!

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  11. My daughter was lucky. She was doing the Facebook thing but gave up and decided to do the random roommate thing and then she met someone at new student orientation over the summer. They decided they liked each other enough to be roommates and are rooming together again next year.

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  14. My daughter had random picks the first year but the second she was able to pick. The first year she actually shared a room with one other girl but there were two other girls living in the same unit. The second year there were four girls but she had her own room. I know that the university gave the girls emails to each other and they did set up a Facebook network for each other but my daughter was very frustrated because she was more mature and responsible than the other girls. That was hard for her because she also doesn’t like to make waves so she didn’t stand up for herself either. Hope it all works out well for your daughter.

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    1. Hoping for the best! Some Facebook networks are better than others. It’s daunting though, because she had absolutely no idea what to ask someone to see if you’re going to be compatible.

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  15. The whole idea of having to live in a tiny room with a stranger is probably one of the biggest reasons I really didn’t want to go to college. Hubby lucked out and there were some issues with his roommate freshman year and he ended up rooming with a friend from HS instead, they stayed roommates for the rest of their time in college. MC is taking this concept into consideration in his choosing of schools. One is close enough he can stay at home, the other he would have to do the whole roommate thing. Considering he is so similar to me in that regard, I think he is leaning towards the closer school, but is going to see what scholarships may be offered before he decides.

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    1. My daughter is looking forward to it, yet uncertainty is obviously right over her shoulder. She just didn’t know what to ask someone to see if you’re compatible….

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  18. I didn’t go to college, but I suppose I did learn about being a roommate living 5 children and 2 adults in a 2 bedroom mobile home growing up. Good luck in college. She should do well. Even if the roommate situation isn’t the best, I think she will handle it with dignity and grace. She seems to have both from reading what you write about her.

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  21. That was well done….and very entertaining to read but I’m sure stressful to live. I had the Chapter One room-mate option – assigned on the basis of a questionnaire although the only thing we had in common was we were both Catholic and didn’t smoke. Otherwise, farm girl versus rich princess snob. The first thing she did was unpack a framed photo of her dad wearing a chain of office and tell me her dad was the mayor of whatever town she was from. The second thing was to make a snide comment about the fact I had taken the bottom bunk. I wore little makeup and she was totally amazed I didn’t know what Estee Lauder was, although she was happy that our bed duvets/quilts were coordinating colours! The only good thing is she went home on the train every weekend to visit her boyfriend and I had the room to myself…..although it was a lonely first semester until I made some friends, three of whom I roomed with later off campus. It seems to me so much more sensible to have some say in the selection process. I wish her luck – it’s a big decision.

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    1. This girl seems really nice and really smart. I think the choice is solid. But I also think that any of the three she’d narrowed it down to would be good

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