Wow, as if it weren’t tough enough to get in to college, now we all have to deal with a new challenge…roommate roulette.

Everyone who has finally gotten in to college, we have achieved our major objective. Now we have to contend with this great unknown. A person we really don’t know, six months from now, will ostensibly be our ‘college roommate.’

Because I don’t like dealing with the unknown, I attempted to mitigate the mystery of the process. My friend told me about a website, Roomsurf.com, that is intended to demystify the process of finding a roommate at your new alma mater.

I gave Roomsurf.com a whirl.

After a few hours on the site, I’m pleased to report that it completely demystifies the process of trying to find a compatible roommate for your freshman year.

Although candidly, I had to search through a lot of haystacks in search of the golden needle.

Well here’s my initial experience with Roomsurf.com. I answered about 20 questions (which by the way taught me a little bit more about myself as a potential roommate to someone else), then I hit the return key, anxiously awaiting my potential matches.

Instantly, the website notified me of 24 matches that met most of my criteria! Roomsurf ranked my compatibility with my potential roommate on a scale of 81% as most compatible and 35% as least compatible. The criteria that they judged us on included: smoking, sexual activity, religion, cleanliness and god knows what…

I contacted candidate number one. She said “ Oh, you sound like the perfect roommate for me, and because you seem so nice, I hope you don’t mind but my high school boyfriend didn’t get into college, and he’s asked if it would be okay for him to sleep on the floor of our dorm room from time to time as he looks for a job. It’s all cool, he’s a lot of fun!!! And is kind of an entrepreneur when it comes to certain ‘herbal remedies’ if you know what I mean. Anyway, so excited. Let me know!”

#Fail

On to the next one. Candidate number two. She said “ Hey Chik lette! You seem like you’d be a really fun roommate. So, you would totally understand me having a fun pet that other people really don’t get. I know that people say that tarantulas are dangerous to humans, but let me set the record straight, they are so much fun!  So I’d like to bring my family of tarantulas, and when they run around the room, it’s a blast!!! We will be the talk of the campus. P.S., my dad’s a doctor and has given us the antidote, so we have nothing to worry about. Peace—Emily.

Get out.

Candidate three. “Hi Nicolette! I think you’re probably my ideal roommate. It’s very important to me that you are perfect haha! Some people call me a neat freak and no worries, that’s not an insult. Some people call it OCD, but I just laugh and say ‘I just like to have things in order!’ Do you like to have things in perfect order? What I mean is, does it bother you to have a dirty room? Let me know. Perfectly yours, Felicia.

No thanks.

Finally, I connected with someone I thought just might be a perfect fit for me as my freshman roommate. Psyched! I made the first move. I said,

“Hii! You’re going to ‘Nova too?”

“Hey! Ya I’m so excited! I just sent in my deposit, what are you majoring in?”

“Political science, what about you?”

“Business and economics. Political science is cool though! I was thinking about that for a while.”

We went back and forth for a couple of days, when The Perfect Roommate said, ‘Hey! Are we roommates or what?’ and I said, ‘ya, it looks that way haha’, and she goes ‘great, oh and hey, just thought I might ask, by chance, do you agree—c’mon, who wouldn’t?—that George W. Bush was our greatest President ever?”

Um, yikes.  And so the search goes on…

But you know what?  Maybe the first year of college is not mostly about finding the perfect roommate.  In fact, maybe it’s better that, come September, we all find ourselves with an absolutely imperfect roomie.  One with a multitude of flaws.

After all, the most important thing a college student could experience is a plethora of eclectic, multi-cultural perspectives.  Isn’t higher education all about being outside of our comfort zone? 

Gosh, I certainly hope so.