A freshman’s nightmarish residence hall tale

A freshman’s nightmarish residence hall tale

Adrienne Martinez

I spent my very first night at UCLA in a guy’s room. We fell
asleep watching TV and when his roommate saw me for the first time,
I was nestled in the covers snoring. In the morning I modestly
dashed back to my own room, robe flying. But the damage had been
done.

We saw each other several times after that and as it turned out,
we just happened to sleep together a lot. Nothing of significance
ever happened: We just lay next to each other sleeping and it was
comforting and completely innocent during the first few weeks. He
never seemed to get angry when his roommate’s friends would tease
us, or, in actuality, tease me, but he would instead just smile and
let them think what they would. We knew the truth, and, at the
time, that seemed like enough.

During a rousing game of
first-week-you-will-definitely-regret-this Truth or Dare, my friend
met his first boyfriend. It certainly didn’t come as a surprise to
me, but my sleeping situation definitely changed.

Banished to my own room, I began looking for a replacement (I
ended up with a stuffed animal, but heck, it was about as physical
as the guy had been). What I didn’t realize was that I would
occasionally be called back to keep up appearances in front of his
roommate, who had begun to ask why I never slept over any more. Now
you see the situation developing. Whether he felt his sexuality
wasn’t any of his roommate’s business or was scared to even bring
it up, the fact remained that he was homosexual and that is not
something that just goes away.

So there I was in my own room ­ a triple ­ having
missed the all-important first few nights of roommate bonding. I
could tell right away that only one of my roommates was even
partial to me ­ the other would occasionally give me a look I
didn’t understand. Looking back, I’d say it was fear. I was some
alien being who slept in her underwear and changed with the door
open. I was sarcastic and my sexual remarks made guys blush: In
other words, I participated in typical first-week antics on a theme
floor not known for prudishness. I’ll let you guess which one it
is.

As the weeks passed in a blur of cafeteria food and numerous
roommate relations meetings, I began to get used to leaving the
room as my roommate was changing and hearing her rant about how
UCLA was teeming with liberals and communists. I actually practiced
just tuning out her voice whenever we were in the room together.
After about a month, however, I realized how much I was
compromising myself and I decided it would be impossible to keep
even a drop of self-respect if I refused to stand up for my
beliefs. "This is college, after all," I told myself. "She should
get used to having her opinions challenged."

From that point on, I dove in with both feet. One day she came
home ranting about homosexuals who lived on our floor. Which was
typical, but my goal was to have her use the actual word
"homosexual" instead of the ones she was using. So we argued. (I
have no illusions ­ it definitely wasn’t a discussion.) And
maybe I was angry and it just slipped out. Or maybe it was entirely
intentional because I wanted to make her mad. But when she said how
gross it would be if any women on our floor were ‘deviant,’ I
blurted out that I am bisexual.

Well, that was it. We both just sat there looking at each other
for a minute and then she left. She didn’t spend one more night in
that room until about a month later, when she got permission to
move out. When I think about it, my own mother took the news a
little better.

A month seemed like an unusually long time to have to wait for a
new roommate, especially considering the fact that my particular
theme floor has an extremely long waiting list. I began to wonder
why, when I just happened to run into a woman near my elevator. She
seemed very sweet and mentioned that she had almost moved into my
room before she found another and she also mentioned why it was
taking such a long time to find a new roommate.

As it turned out, she said, the housing department had been in
essence warning every applicant of the exact reasons why my
roommate had moved. She used those exact words ­ warning them.
"AGAINST WHAT?!" I wanted to scream. "THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH
ME!" It took me years to be able to say that to myself and really
believe it, and it took the housing office one month to make me
doubt myself again.

UCLA seems like a fairly accepting school, doesn’t it? I mean,
you can’t make your way down Bruin Walk without stepping on at
least three people trying to save b aby seals and 12 people handing
out flyers about communism. So, what’s happening here? I forgot
that this school, and to some extent our dorms, are really just
tiny microcosms of society, complete with the shy kids and the
weird kids and all those people who constantly remind us of why we
needed yard duty in elementary school.

Warning them? I guess maybe potential roommates should be
warned, but I’m just worried whether or not housing was giving the
correct warning. I imagine myself breaking into the housing office
late one night and opening a file cabinet that says ‘TOP SECRET’:
In this fantasy, as I pull my file, I see red ink stamped across
the front that reads:

WARNING: FIERCELY INDEPENDENT AND PROUD FEMALE WHO COULD REALLY
GIVE A RIP IF YOU REFUSE TO BE UNDERSTANDING OR AT LEAST
RESPECTFUL.

Yeah, I don’t think I’d mind too much if they gave that
warning.

Incidentally, now I have a new roommate who ignores me
completely. I wish they’d warned me about her.

Martinez is a first-year student double- majoring in
neuroscience and art.