Before i came to college, I read a lot of advice from websites and books about why you should not live with your high school best friend. My best friend and i decided to live apart in an effort to avoid losing a great friendship, but live in the same building in order to still be close by each other.

As luck would have it, I have a room on the first floor and she has a room on the third. At first, we had fun visiting each other and hanging out all day long. when classes started, we stopped going to her room because her roommate’s boyfriend was always there. We started hanging out exclusively in mine along with my roommate’s three best friends. Things got annoying pretty fast after that.

She stopped asking me if it was okay for her to come over and started popping up when she wanted to. When i weren’t together, she would text me and ask where I was and what I was doing. Then she would follow me everywhere. At the end of the day, she would follow me to my dorm and stay for hours at a time.

No matter how many polite hints I dropped, like saying I was studying or suggesting that we plan to meet up the next day, she refused to leave. I see her in my room more than I see my roommate.

I’m a natural loner. The only way for me to be sane is to have time to myself, or as my roommate puts it, “have some me time”. She, on the other hand, is a major extrovert. You will never find her without a smile on her face. It is an excellent mood booster if you have had a bad day, but of course, that is before you see her every moment of every day.

After a little while, everything she did started to annoy me. Our beds are semi loft, and when she would climb up, I would cringe. She would try to lye down on my pillows and I would threaten to push her out. All of these gestures simply went over her head.

Since our moms are best friends and our sisters often do things with us, I didn’t want to ruin things by ending our friendship. I felt suffocated, but since i don’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings, I held how I felt inside until i was ready to explode.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. She had noticed my change in attitude, but I doubt that she really knew what was coming to her. After a full day of following me around, she left to take a test. My roommates friends were in the room when she came back and announced with a big catfish grin, “I failed my math test!’.

She climbed on my bed and after a little while of talking to my roommate’s friends, she tried to lye down beside me on my pillows. I shoved her head back and told her, “Don’t you dare”. My roommate and her friends left to go correct a problem with my roommate’s pizza at Domino’s.

After a little while, my best friend looked at me and said, “You’re awfully quiet today.” I replied with a slight nod and went back to reading my “Step-by-step: Writing Your First Article for Associated Content” print out. She climbed down and said, “Is it alright if I change the channel to Cartoon Network.” I said with a snappy attitude, “I don’t care what you do.” Finally, getting the hint, she asked with a smile, ”What’s the matter with you” I lowered my article and glared at her. “I’m trying to study!” I yelled. She left and went back to her room.

I learned a valuable lesson so far. When you are in college, it’s not just your parents and roommates that you need to establish a space issue with; it’s your best friend too. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to enjoy the silence before I go up to her room and apologize. Hopefully, she hasn’t told her mom or sister what happened yet.

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