Social networking has come a long way the past five years or so, when putting personal information in the Internet was something to be frowned upon and cautioned. Now it's anything short of a way of life; without Facebook, one seems to be less of a real person. Six years ago, when adults constantly advised us to conceal our identity online, I never imaged that I would be trusting the Internet to an extremely important decision: the person I would live with my freshman year of college.
I joined the UAlbany 2013 group, I posted the roommate surveys and I made my own. I looked for my UAlbany residential soul mate: a female with good taste in music, interests in matters outside the material world our generation lives in, a person who would go out with me but wouldn't go completely crazy. Lil' Wayne and Nickelback caused me to mentally reject the majority of my classmates as potential roommates, but that's a decision I do not regret at all. Taste is music can sometimes summarize a person better than anything else... that's my philosophy.
Everyone that seemed to fit my criteria was taken. Worried I wouldn't find anyone, I posted on the group something of a "WANTED" ad... and I got a response from Bridget O'Brien, whose bed I now sit on in my pajamas, watching Disney channel, blogging, and wondering what supreme force (besides Facebook) brought us together as roommates.
I have yet to find roommates who are closer than we are. We're by no means the same type of person, but we're a perfect match. On the third night of school I crawled into bed with her... of all the examples I could use, this seems to sum up our relationship pretty well. I consider her a "best friend", after our Superbad moment last Friday night -- "You're my best friend and I want to shout it from the rooftops."
Was it some all-knowing, all-mighty force that brought us together to share in the most perfect roommate bond the universe has seen? Or was it seemly the all-revealing power of Facebook? Perhaps my unhealthy addiction to the social networking site has sharpened mine - and Bridget's - ability to interpret people online, to see what the write and accurately judge them based on how they portray themselves. We, like much of our generation, speak Facebook thoroughly. We know that boys who list "Interests" as "girls, parties, cars, chillin", are not worth knowing and anyone whose music taste consists of only things on Top 40 radio don't have their own music tastes at all, and therefore must be unoriginal. Bridget's Facebook was perfect: I imagined her to be pretty much exactly how she is.
However, had she not messaged me I'm not sure at all who I would be rooming with, I was getting a bit too picky. All the Facebook-reading skills in the world wouldn't have helped to find her in the first place, so maybe it was some type of Irish luck that brought us together after all.
3 comments:
That sounds like my cousin Jen finding what would become her future husband on eHarmony. She uploaded what she wanted in a soul mate and then page through compatible people.
Haha, it's so true. A person's music taste actually says a lot about them. Which is why I judge people solely on this.
As for closer roommates, you clearly forgot my roommates :)
haha Gary, there are moments when I think, "Oh my god, we're ALMOST Nick and Gary."
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