Lease Renewals and Fresh Starts

Roommates have come in and out of my life like fashion trends—in one season, out the next. Like the girl who tried to convert me to her religion by praying for me while I listened to punk music, the broken poet, the girls from China who stayed up all night singing pop music, the ranch kid, the girl who got mad and threw her shoes down the hall, the beer pong guys, and the nine roommates in a four-bedroom house in South Lake Tahoe. Oh, and the goth kid who found a dead bird on the street, ripped its wings off and hung them on his bedroom door.

“Um, what are you doing?”
“Salvaging.”

The idea of roommates is fascinating (I can say this in hindsight). In a culture where we are more apt to isolate and avoid communal activities, we find it completely normal to cohabitate with others, often strangers for extended periods of time. Back in the day, we would look for roommates on bulletin boards or Craigslist, before it was creeper.com. Sometimes you’d get to vet the person, interviewing them about their job, interests, and ability to give you space, but sometimes you’d be so desperate for somebody else to split the lease that you’d say yes to anyone, even the girl who seemed a little crazy, but you overlooked it because she’s probably fine, and showed up on move-in day with two giant rats she “forgot” to tell you about.

I’ll admit that I’m an okay roommate. Not the best—just okay. I believe that a home should operate in a specific way (my way) such as:

it should be clean and free of beer cans on the bathroom floor, no parties without informing roommates, no canoodling in the same room as a roommate, stove burners should be turned off before leaving the house, and if you’re going to throw a naked volleyball game you should expect the cops to be called. In my years of having roommates, all of these rules have been broken. When the unofficial code of conduct is broken, the “chill” facade I may have been faking disappears. One time, when none of the nine other roommates in Tahoe would do the dishes in our tiny house, and the pots and pans literally piled up on the counters two feet high, instead of doing all of the dishes myself, I took every single one and laid them out on the kitchen floor before I left for work. I told you: I’m only an okay roommate. Not great, and not chill. But the dishes were all done by the time I got home!

That being said, I’ve had some awesome relationships with roommates and next-door neighbors living so close they might as well be roommates—latenight talks, backyard barbeques, camping trips. Sometimes it’s nice to have someone, anyone, around when you need someone to care.

Even Rat Girl and I had some great talks over tea (as her rats ran around in hamster balls) about literature and our paths in life. The nice thing about a roommate is that you don’t have to be best friends. You just need to have mutual respect for one another. And isn’t that something we should strive for in everyday life?

Roommates teach us how to share space with others, sometimes friends and family, sometimes total strangers. Sometimes the space shared is so small you have to use the kitchen one at a time, or you high-five from separate beds before going to sleep (truth; this happened). If we continue to build our cities for cars and condos, and not for pedestrians and open spaces, we are going to lose the skills needed to share space with one another. Your neighbor’s barking dog might drive you crazy, or their political signs might irritate you, but I encourage you to pause for a moment. What if you had to live with your neighbor? Before you say, “There is absolutely no way,” I challenge you to think: what if you really, truly had to live with them? I’d bet you’d find a way to make it work. Once you got past the “red pill/blue pill” dichotomy, you’d probably find you have more in common than not, and that you want many of the same things: a clean, safe home, time to relax, and, once again, mutual respect. You might even bond over a Stranger Things binge night, or a shared love of dark chocolate Chippers (who doesn’t love chocolate-covered potato chips).

Do yourself a favor and drive by one of the universities and colleges on move-in weekend. You’ll see hundreds of young, eager faces about to launch a new chapter of their lives with total strangers. Watch them haul futons and mini-fridges across campus with total glee and see if you can bring that excitement to your own neighborhood or home. This fall, I challenge you to meet a new neighbor and find common ground. If you need some talking points, try: puppies, the Beatles, lefse, and when in doubt, the weather.

Wanted: Roomate

(neighbors, friends, strangers) ready to share conversations about anything or nothing. Mutual respect required. Willingness to push cars out of snow in the winter and share bounties of zucchini in the summer. Pets okay. Kids okay. Must do dishes.