“You’re gonna have a lot of trouble when you have a roommate,” my best friend Stephanie said as I was packing. “Because you’re an only child. You’re gonna have to share everything.”

“I don’t think it will be too big of a problem,” I responded. “I know it’s going to be different, but I’ll get through it.”

I truly believed that. I’ve never had siblings, and all of my cousins are older than me. The whole “sharing is caring” thing never really applied to me after I left pre-school, but I didn’t think I had a problem sharing with people before my freshman year at college. I shared makeup and clothes with my friends. I was always the go-to person when my friends needed lunch money. I didn’t even make them pay me back right away. I was thinking that having a roommate wouldn’t be that hard.

Besides, they would be required to share with me, too. Right?

My roommate and I didn’t really make rules when we first got to school. We shared clothes, shoes and jewelry. We figured out what snacks we both liked and divided them accordingly. When it came time to furnish the room, we took turns paying. Everything seemed fine. We have one of those economy double style rooms, which are ridiculously small. We never really had an issue with space though: other than the bunk beds, our room is pretty much divided evenly in half. So that wasn’t a problem either.

At some point though, little things that never bothered us suddenly started to become annoying, like when I come back to my room expecting to eat the rest of my pint of chocolate ice cream but it has already been eaten because we “share” the food. That’s enough to irk anyone on a bad day. Except, I guess, the lactose intolerant.

Also, it’s cool if you take turns paying, but sometimes not everything is equal, right? If I go to CVS and pay about $20 for necessities (cereal, Hot Pockets, Vitamin Water, etc.), and then my roommate goes to Target and spends $40 on pillows, blankets and towels, is that really equal? The pillows and blankets were probably just for her anyway.

We had to iron out a TV schedule, too. My roommate and I don’t like the same television shows, so taking turns with the remote is very important, especially when it comes to television show marathons.

You know what else is hard to divide evenly? Time. You know how sometimes you just want to be alone and you wish your roommate would leave so you have time to think? Or maybe you want to spend time with a special someone and your roommate won’t disappear? You have to learn to deal with that, too.

That’s the most important thing. It’s more important than just learning to share a physical space. Having consideration and knowing when to give someone space, both the physical and emotional kinds, is important too.

– Kier Bristol is a freshman journalism major.