Roommates

It's interesting living 18 years without having to share hardly a thing, then suddenly being expected to get along swimmingly with whoever the random person you're paired with is.

It's a beautiful thing when it works out amazingly. It's never happened for me though. That's not to say that I don't love my roommates. I do, always have, always will. But every year I feel like I've fought some big conflict with a person I'm living with at the time.

But I've seen it work. When K lived with random people, he and his military bound roommate got along like none other. They watched all the same TV shows and introduced each other to the music each of them liked and within 3 months were singing along with the other's music and even having mini dance parties. I was the witness to this dynamic. There was S, the military IT major. D, the token Asian who everyone picked on. Then there was P, the pharm school guy. K and P hit it off originally - their mutual geekiness brought them together, but it was S and K that forged the strongest bond.

It's nice being able to see that those types of bonds are possible between roommates.

I had a really weird flashback to that today. My boyfriend, B, and his co-worker B (let's call him BMD) hit it off as soon as they started working together. B and BMD bonded initially over TV. Now they've realized they both share the same shitty taste in music. When that song came on, they both just started dancing. They've serenaded me, drinking in the backseat of my car. They're thinking about moving in together and I can just see them being exactly like K and S. It makes me happy to think that I can visit them next year and, oh, I dunno, I'll accidentally walk in on them playing a Taylor Swift song on Rock Band. And then they'll actually fairly justify it!

I haven't had much luck with roommates. It's never been absolutely horrible, but it's never been that perfect experience. But that's okay. I'll manage by living vicariously through other's perfect pairings.