I recently posted that I lost another roommate to a boyfriend. I now have a new roommate and have been remembering all the experiences that come with a new roommate. I was lucky when I first moved here that my roommate was awesome. Best roommate I could have imagined.
Now I have a roommate who turned 24 a few days ago (yes, I realize she’s a few months older than me but at heart I think I’m 80 and I prefer living with people several years my senior). I’m pretty sure this is the first apartment she’s had on her own. She seems to be a very young 24 and quite the opposite of me in just about every way. This hasn’t really been a problem. It just means that I know she and I aren’t going to be BFFs.
One of the biggest differences between the two of us is our relationship with/attitudes about alcohol. I have a drink pretty frequently. I have a glass of wine with dinner a few times a week usually and (since moving to DC) occasionally have a beer or two. Very very rarely do I have more than two drinks. It happens, but it’s never because I’m hoping to get drunk. This has often set me apart from my peers. As far as I can remember, I’ve never gone out with the purpose of getting drunk. Because of this, I rarely went out in college because the purpose of going out was to drink as much as possible and I would rather watch a movie at home with a glass of wine. If I go out, it’s to spend time with friends and hang out. Drunk time doesn’t equal quality time in my mind.
Well, the new roommate likes getting drunk. Last Thursday we were at home, both in the living room and she said she wanted to go out drinking. I made a joke about going to the Quarry House for beer (me of course, meaning one beer) and she got excited and wanted to go. It was Thursday at 8:30 PM and, shockingly, I was planning to work the next day. I kindly turned her down.
Her sister came for the weekend to celebrate her birthday (I realize birthday weekends should not be used to judge regular behavior) but let’s just say the boozing started around noon on Saturday and lasted until mid-afternoon Sunday. (Oh yeah, the sister arrived on Friday after traveling with a hang over.)
She (the roommate) is nice. She’s definitely a girly girl. Her favorite color is pink (she informed me of this when I showed her the pink bathroom). She loves shopping. She loves Starbucks. She has terrible taste (we now have plastic, square-shaped, zebra plates in our kitchen). She sucks at making coffee and loading the dish washer (okay…I’m the crazy one here. But, come on, it makes perfect sense to me that the dish washer should be loaded in a way to expedite the unloading process. And I love organization.). But she is nice. She doesn’t seem to have anything unique about her, though, she’s just kind of a generic girl. She talks about how much she hates working, loves shopping, wants to get a sunburn so it turns into a tan (I wear SPF 70).
While lounging around the pool on Saturday, her sister asked if one of her friends was gay. Her response: “I love gay people so I’m not offended you would ask that, but he’s not gay.” Rrrrr…I stayed out of that conversation. Whenever someone says “I love gay people” I take it as a signal that they don’t actually love gay people. Later in the afternoon she started a sentence with “my gay friend.” I’m considering starting a sentence with “my straight friend” sometime soon. I think she will be confused for a very long time.
It has also become clear that she did not grow up going to church. Obviously, as a PK, my experience is a bit different. I’m not the most outwardly religious person, but church played a huge role in my upbringing and the values I learned as a result are fundamental in my decisions and life now. She seems to be scared of church and people who go to church. I can understand this. The people who make the most noise about church tend to be scary. Definitely. However, it seems like she has very little understanding of church and is pretty judgmental of people who participate in church activities.
Random thing I was thinking about today: when she said she hates working I asked what she really would like to do. I figure if you hate your job, find one you love. She said her dream is to be a book editor. Except that I haven’t seen her open a book since she’s lived here. But I have seen her watch several hours of Teen Mom in a row.
Okay, this has become much longer than I was anticipating. All in all, I think she’ll be a fine roommate. As long as I beat her to the coffee everyday and don’t try to have actual conversations with her, I think we’ll be fine.
