Graphic by Chandler Littleford/The Choate News
I’m not saying that I didn’t like my former roommates — in fact, I have become great friends with all of them — but when I learned that I would be living in a single as a junior, I was overjoyed. I’d long felt that my life at Choate had been missing something because I had yet to experience the freedom of living, really and truly, by myself.
I was right about becoming much more independent. I missed having full control of my daily schedule and the tranquility of studying alone. Being able to sleep whenever I wanted and not being forced to wake up by my roommate feels like a privilege. Whenever I’m mentally exhausted of the social life at Choate, I get to temporarily retreat back into my cozy space and recharge for the following day.
And yet, just when I thought that I was enjoying my best life, I started to realize the downside of having a single. The healthy and productive routine that I had envisioned for myself at the beginning of the school year turned out to be difficult to maintain. Whenever I’m doing work in my room, my inner voice of procrastination becomes clearer than ever and tells me to take a break. If I choose to give in to my desire and try to convince myself that I deserve a break after a long day of hard work, I’ll likely spend the next hour doing everything but getting through my work, feeling guilty for procrastinating later on. There was a sense of irregularity that I knew I could not control, and I realized that getting a single might not be the wisest choice when I procrastinated in my room on Netflix for three hours.
Having a roommate teaches people how to adapt to living with another person as well as checking their own behaviors. When I was living in a double, I had to synchronize my sleep schedule with my roommates because I couldn’t fall asleep if there was any light or noise. While it was difficult in the beginning, my roommates and I adapted so well that I would even stay up late to work ahead of my homework if my roommate needed to finish his work for the next day. In a sense, trying to tolerate each other’s sleep schedule was the way that we got our work done. Moreover, the presence of a roommate prevents one from shutting themselves off from the community. Despite the privacy that a single room can provide, it can also be a prison that traps someone, especially one who is not mentally well, isolating themselves and preventing others from seeing how they truly feel. The possibility that there is always someone I could talk to is something I miss.
Then, why are singles still so popular? Getting a double means that we are always in the process of sharing our personal space with others. We trivialize our past experience because things always look easier in the past. In terms of living in a double, we cannot have the hindsight of what we gain from living with something until we have a single –– this makes a lot of people in doubles desperate to get the experience of living alone. I never realized the benefits of living in a double because I was constantly aware of the compromises that I had to make. This mindset created an illusion that I could live my perfect life if I could only get a single.
I thought that living in a single would be the best thing that has ever happened to me, but I failed to see the disadvantages. Getting a single or a double is not necessarily “better”; but it is important that we acknowledge the pros and cons of both living situations before coming to a decision.
