KAWACHI: Blessing and a curse

You know you have a good relationship with your roommate when you insult them on a constant basis. Especially to their face, albeit jokingly. At least that’s how my roommate and I show our affection towards one another. As freshmen, entering a whole new, slightly intimidating, crazy world of college wonders, I can say with absolute certainty . . . we were lucky.

We met on Facebook. Conversed. Probably stalked. We ended up requesting to room together, months before we had ever met outside the parameters of the social networking site. This seemed to be the trend of the times – many people were forming these friendships, born out of the uncertainty a random room assignment would bring.  It was a massive leap of faith. We knew only what we consciously shared. Our likes and dislikes, certain habits – albeit not completely true – and personalities, as much as text-based communication allowed.

I know, this whole situation . . . sounds a bit frightening, right? But that’s why I say that we were lucky. My roommate has turned out to be, not only a wonderful person to live with, but also one of my best friends, a sister even. We spend the majority of our time outside of class together – not only by sharing a room, but also by sharing meals, friends, and adventures. I often leave our room, not to escape her for fear of awkwardness, but for the sheer fact that when we’re together, we never get any work done.I cannot, for the life of me, imagine my first semester here at Boston without being friends with my roommate.

I know of similarly founded roommate situations – the whole Facebook phenomenon – that did not work out as they had expected. The same goes for many of those who didn’t, or still don’t, get along with their randomly assigned roommate. Luckily, this was not the case in our situation.

I acknowledge the fact that we are a rarity: a diamond in the rough of first year experiences. In complete and utterly scary honesty, we are the same person. And what we don’t share in common, we complement in each other. Yes, I know . . . this sounds remarkably like a relationship. For all intents and purposes, it practically is – it’s often joked that we are an old married couple: I the wife, and she the husband. This may come from the fact that I often help to make her bed, pick up groceries, whine about the untidiness of her side of the room and most importantly of all complain until she does the dishes. An odd relationship, am I right? Hell, her birthday card to me said “To My Wife”.

After our first semester here in Boston, away from our homes and old lives on the West Coast, I’m happy to share that our experiences have been great. I wouldn’t trade my roommate for the world.

Krissen Kawachi is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences and a weekly columnist. She can be contacted at k.kawachi@gmail.com