16 People You"re Happy You Don"t Live With

Roommates are high risk, low reward. Like WAY more risk and WAY less reward than a boyfriend or girlfriend. Think about it: if you start dating someone, you get a chance to know the person, learn their habits, decide if you like them well enough to live with them, and then slowly and cautiously start staying over at their place on weekends to make sure they’re stable.

A roommate is a stranger you found online that within 24 hours of meeting them, you’ll both be using the same shower and toilet. What kind of wacky social experiment is that, and how have we been coerced into thinking it’s normal? It’s the furthest thing from normal. You actively avoid eye contact with your neighbors at the grocery store to avoid awkward conversation, but with this stranger you met online, you’re ready to move your stuff into close quarters with them and sleep with the door unlocked. It’s bizarre, but so many of us do it.

Anyways, the roommate thing doesn’t always go as planned. From terrible habits and passive-aggressive notes to crippling alcoholism, there is always the potential for absolute anarchy to ensue, turning your home into a prison you pay to be in.

Just weird…

1. The “passive-aggressive note” roommate.

I start this article off with the horrors of the passive-aggressive note roommate because I was this roommate. In all fairness to me, I didn’t know how else to ask them to do the damn dishes…because I physically asked them in person time and time again, and the dishes had flies on them…so many flies. But in fairness to them, we were a house of six guys, all in our undergrad. What was I expecting?

2. The “I’m not who you think I am” roommate.

Are you tired of your roommates going through your crap? Do you have skeletons in your closet you need to keep quiet? Then you need a drawer full of ammo, condoms, a rosary, a gun and pepper spray! Nothing says, “you don’t want to know my dark side,” like a drawer chock full o’ prophylactics and weapons.

3. The “mom used to do this for me” roommate.

Dish soap in the dishwasher. Makes sense, right? No, you pleb! Do you tie your own shoes in the morning or are you still wearing Velcro? I’ve literally seen this same roommate with four different types of alcohol in his system go 10/10 in a beer pong game, wake up the next morning AND go to the gym for an hour-and-a-half. Yet the dishwasher? Stumped.

4. The “look who I brought home last night” roommate.

As anal as I was about dirty dishes, one thing I always looked forward to was waking up in the morning and finding strangers sleeping in our house. I’d always make them coffee, put on Sports Center and wait for them to wake up. And when they did wake up, I’d carry on mundane conversations about sports like the guy/girl was supposed to be on my couch having a conversation with me. Freaks them RIGHT out.