A couple housekeeping items before I dive right into this one. First… one of my subscribers made the suggestion for me to use fake names instead of numbers because it would be easier to follow in the story. What do you guys think? Leave a comment below! 🙂

Secondly, I’ve been excited to share another installation to The Roommate Chronicles, but after my 3,000+ word blog my birthday cruise, I couldn’t bring myself to post another long blog immediately after that novel. So I hope you all enjoyed Beauty Talk: The 3 Skincare Products I Can’t Live Without and I Haven’t Talked About Stitch Fix in a Minute.

Now on to this TRC feature. Roommate #3 is truly special to me. I say that despite the fact that the bitty doesn’t even read/follow my blog.

So #3 lived down the hall from me freshman year of college, and for most of the first semester, I had minimal interaction with her. Randomly, on the last day of Intro to Psych, I saw #3 and decided to sit next to her. I didn’t ask if it was okay, and I didn’t find it at all weird that I hadn’t sat with her ever before. It was a lecture hall, so whatever. She was initially receptive… and then immediately judgmental because within minutes, I was online Christmas shopping instead of paying attention to the final exam review. Psychology was her chosen major, so surely she was more invested than me. I had yet to even declare a major yet and was still in my “I didn’t even want to go to college” phase.

Then again, maybe she thought I was cool for blowing off the review. After all, she did end up inviting me to my first fraternity party that same night. Y’know, the party I talked about in The Roommate Chronicles: #1 and #2 where I stumbled back and was throwing up everywhere.

#3 literally will not let me live down my outfit selection and regularly sends me pictures in that infamous “green sweater” from American Eagle. These texts are always followed by her trademark “teehee” laugh. Years later, she’d even make a photo-book, which could be appropriately titled: A Drunk Melanie Production. Of course, the photo from our first party together was included with her snarky caption, “I remember my first beer….” Untamed and unfiltered right here — looking like a glistening, ripe cherry tomato with pupils the size of golf-balls.

That night, prior to me barging in on #2 and her guest, I was laying on the floor of #3’s room while she was awkwardly laying on her bed, legs and feet vertically propped up against the wall. We must have sat like that for two hours talking about softball (she was a catcher and I was a pitcher) and our boyfriends — shockingly similar to how I bonded with #1, right? Somehow the conversation progressed and both of us simultaneously suggested that we should room together the following year. And just like that, I was agreeing to live with someone I had barely “known” for 24 hours… again.

Fortunately for me, this would not be a repeat of #1. We would end up living together sophomore, junior, and senior year of college and I’d end being the Maid of Honor at her wedding, and embarrassing her with the best MOH speech. We’re truly best friends, but I think what people would find most interesting about us is that our personalities couldn’t be more different. The easiest way to illustrate our friendship is a classic Sex and the City reference. Check the opening clip below. I am Samantha and she is Carrie introducing me to anyone… “And this is my friend, Melanie.”

Because we’ve known each other for close to a decade now, there are so many memories. Some highlights:

• Early on in our friendship, she was highly embarrassed by my inability to filter curse words out of my vocabulary when the situation called for it. She often recalls one of our first walks to class on a bitter cold day. We were just passing through a crowd of people when I yelled, “Why in the fuck does it have to be so fucking cold out-fucking-side?!” She grew to love it… or at the very least, she just grew to accept it and assure people, “And this is my friend, Melanie.”
• During our first year living together, she had a fight with her boyfriend, who was long-distance at Virginia Tech. I was sitting at my desk getting ready to go to work and she came over and put the phone up to my ear, “Tell him he is being unreasonable!” Mind you, I had never met her boyfriend, nor had I ever spoken with him on the phone. Hell, we weren’t even social media friends. “Hi… Uhm. You’re being unreasonable?” I said while staring at her like What in the actual fuck? I didn’t even know what the fight was about. As we got to know each other better over the years, we’d soon come to realize that I probably would have been on his “side” in that argument. Again, she and I are very different and we think very differently. This boyfriend, and now husband, would grow to appreciate me being in her life because I’ll always be the first to tell her that she is being unreasonable.
• Speaking of boyfriends, this betch is the OG-wannabe-Matchmaker. She was notorious for bringing guys up to me at the club and drunkenly screaming over the music: “This is my roommate Melanie! She’ll love you! You’re totally her type!” Not one resulted in a boyfriend, but to this day, some of those dudes still follow me on Instagram.
• One Tuesday night we went out for casual drinks, whatever that meant to me at the time… I ended up finishing two pitchers of beer by myself. *shrugs* Can’t remember what she drank, but if I had to guess she was on her Dirty Shirley kick at this time. Again, very different chicks. I’ll throw back whiskey with the best of ’em and she’s all “Let’s do Lemon Drops!” She does love Fireball, though. Anyway, it turned out that I had forgotten I had to go to work (at the campus gym) and she suddenly wanted to workout. When I showed up for my shift, wouldn’t you know that there was some crisis (i.e., a fire) and the Building Manager (my boss) had been called in and was dealing with the aftermath. He took one look at me and knew I was blitzed… immediately told me to go make myself useful elsewhere. So I started walking around the fitness area and stumbled upon #3 drunkenly running on the treadmill. She’d end up leaving after a minute put her damn near death.
• During our senior year, this girl was misdiagnosed with mono by three different physicians, which left me scratching my head like, “Who you been kissing?” And then I flashed back to a party where some ass-hat was daring me and her to kiss. Natural opposites, she was reluctant and trying to run away, but before she could, I grabbed her wrist and turned her against the refrigerator. Not surprisingly, I heard her singing Katy Perry in the shower the next morning. 😉 And I feel okay revealing this since I already drunkenly told her mom while wedding dress shopping. I mean, if her mom knows, we’re good. But I know if #3 is actually reading, she’s frantically dialing my number to yell at me. But I won’t pick up because I don’t talk on the phone. Leave a comment below #3!

It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. We had our disagreements and times when we didn’t see eye to eye. It was difficult to live with someone who had to fall asleep with the TV on when I needed complete silence and darkness to sleep. It was difficult to live with someone who was such a light sleeper that the slightest noises would wake her and she acted like a princess about it at times. There was one serious fight as well, in which I thought I might not speak to her ever again. There was also a short period of time senior year where my promiscuity made her super uncomfortable, feeling like we no longer related to each other like we did the first night… reminiscing our times on the softball field and having long-time, and long-distance, boyfriends. But, through the good times and the bad, and all the differences between us, we made it.

Lessons learned from living with #3?

1. Don’t allow a routine or your normal way of doing things command your entire life. Try new things. Do something different every day. That boss I talked about earlier… he used to say that he strives to take a different route home each day. It gives him new perspective and he sees and experiences things that he wouldn’t have otherwise. Similarly, I look back and am so grateful for whatever it was that told me to sit in a different seat that last day of class, right next to #3. It led to a friendship that is so incredibly near and dear to my heart, which leads me to this:
2. A lot of people say to trust your gut. Well, I’ve experienced a lot of times in life where my gut was wrong. But, drunkenly laying on the floor deciding to live with #3 was something my gut (be as it may, full of Jooze and beer) was telling me it was the right thing to do. So, sometimes your gut isn’t wrong.
3. It’s important to surround yourself with people who are different from you. Much like taking a different route home, having a diverse group of friends offers new perspectives and new experiences. The best thing about me and #3 is that we are hyper-aware of our differences. She knows that I’m not the friend to go to when she wants empathy, but instead, the friend to go to when she needs the blunt truth. Meanwhile, I’ll always be thankful that even in my wildest, most untamed moments, I know this girl will always always have my back.

Our friendship is the epitome of two people loving and accepting each other for exactly who they are, despite how different they may be. I think the world needs a lot more of that.

FEATURED IMAGE BY: JULIA CAESAR

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