After writing countless essays, spending hours checking over your application, and enduring months of waiting for college decisions, you’ve finally committed to a school. It may seem like the worst is over, right? Wrong! Now that you know where you’re headed, it’s time to find a roommate—the person you’ll split a shoebox-sized dorm room with for an entire school year. You might be intimidated or even scared by this task. Good! In fact, it will probably be worse than you expect.

Not all hope is lost, though: follow these simple steps and there’s a possibility you’ll find someone to live with who you might not completely hate.

First, overanalyze the Instagram pages that post photos and biographies of your future classmates. Maybe one person seems cool, but they’re a theater major. Convince yourself they’ll never stop singing and you’ll endure a nightmarish, sleepless year. Pass! Computer science? They probably won’t shower, right? That’s a no-go too. Tell yourself that even if you do message someone, they’ll probably ignore you (or reply just to say they hate you already). Time to make your own post and pray your dream roommate reaches out.

Now, curate ten pictures to capture your existence. Then you’ll either pay too much money or wait for weeks in order to get posted. Easy! During this time, convince yourself that no one will message you because your bio started with “Hello” instead of “Hi.” They’ll all think you’re weird. You can already picture four years of lonely, friendless weekends spent in the library. All of your future classmates probably have a group chat where they make fun of you.

Finally, your post is up. Congrats, there are now thirty people in your Instagram DMs. Replying to them will take as much mental strength as writing an English essay. You’re not sure if you could see yourself living with any of them. A random roommate might not be so bad after all.

This piece was originally published in Zephyrus’ print edition on May 24, 2024