New Roommates

Hey all,

I'm a freshman in college. When I moved into the dorm, I roomed with a girl I had met and let her know I'm gay to avoid any future awkwardness. She was perfectly fine with it, but her parents were not and made her move out. Still a bit depressed and offended about that, but that's life!

Anyway, I'm getting my new roommate sometime this week. We've never met, and all I know is her name and what she looks like. Now I'm lost as to what to do. I have a wall of all of my gay posters, I wear gay pride buttons and shirts, and I'm very openly gay. This girl may move in during the middle of the day when I'm not in the room, and I'm not sure if I should take down my flamboyantly gay posters for this week and sort of slowly give her the idea, or just leave it be and let her find out quickly, or whatever else. (Also note that room changes are not allowed for roommate disagreements, so if she's a homophobe, we're stuck together.)

I just want to be nice about it and test her out since this is the exact reason I refused to have a random roommate assignment. If I'm paying for a room, I don't want to share it with someone who I make uncomfortable and who hates me. What should I do?

 

Thanks, everyone. I'm just going to leave it up. Not entirely sure if I could bring up a conversation about it.... I tend to just let other people make comments and not be so open as to have that be the first thing people learn about me.

I'd love to send her an email, but the school only gave me her first name and no contact info. (If they had, the first thing I'd want to know is WHEN she's moving in -- I'm paranoid about keeping it clean since I have no idea!) Since neither of us can change rooms unless one of us moves off campus, is there anything I should do in case we totally clash over this?

 

Oh, I'm definitely fine with hot guy posters on her side; my last roommate did the same to sort of balance out the room. (Besides, mine aren't naked women are anything; most of them are social justice, posters from our LGBTQ club, and that sort of thing. It's not offensive by any means unless you're anti-humanity.) I think I'll take down one or two of the more obvious ones for now.

Arcus: my last roommate managed to leave because she is no longer staying in a dorm. The university only has an issue with students switching between dorms.

Well, either way, it looks like she'll be here in two days, so I'll see how she seems to react...

 

Thanks. I did find her on Facebook, and now the only things I know about her are where she's from (a liberal state, thankfully) and that she likes sports. Hmm, not much of a help there, but I guess it's only a matter of time right now!

 

Giving a rather humorous update that's a bit overdue....

So, the new roommate I referenced in here didn't move in on the date I expected. Last night, I got back from class and checked my texts. (I had left my phone number with the front desk and asked that she call me when she finally moved in since we had no contact info for each other.) There was a new message that just said, "I won't live with faggots." And, of course, a similar note posted on the door. This morning, I get notice that someone else was going to move in tomorrow.

A little down in the dumps since I wasn't expecting such a hurtful reaction. I would have been fine with her saying she didn't want to live with me or whatever, but phrasing it that way? Yeah, I have little to no hope about the next one. Now I'm torn between leaving the posters up and risk losing yet another roommate or taking them down and just staying as deeply closeted as possible.

 

Haha, hopefully the next one works out.... I figure it is a good plan to just leave things as they are and hope the next one will have sense to leave if she can't tolerate me or stay if she's fine. It just pisses me off so much that people can be so incredibly stupid and hurtful. The girl I was originally going to room with, who I had known for about a year previously, finally refused to sign the housing contract because she thought I was "rape her in her sleep" or something equally stupid. Here I was thinking that was the last time I would get a reaction like that....

 

I don't know about you, but every gay person I've ever met has automatically wanted to hook up with every person of the same gender they've ever laid eyes on. Naturally.