This time of year always means playing the game — the back-and-forth of niceties and helping to carry boxes and bags so you seem like a reasonable person. And so you don’t send your roommate’s parents running to the nearest resident assistant. But when the dust settles, you actually have to live with these people, and that’s when the trouble can start.

Two semesters ago, I lived with an amateur male model who blasted a techno-Miley Cyrus mix at all hours of the day and night. A friend had a roommate who kept a hamster in her top dresser drawer until one day it escaped, and she accidentally sat on it and killed it. There are roommates who steal food, who never leave their room and who refuse to clean — even when their desks are covered with a fine film of green mold.

These are what college students must expect as we share our rooms, homes and apartments with our peers. While some of us get to live with our friends, still more of us, usually freshmen or transfer students, live with complete strangers. Last semester, my roommate wore a full-length, leopard-print dressing gown, hovered silently in doorways and always, without fail, ate directly outside of my room. All I would hear in the mornings, afternoons and evenings was the “clink, clink, clink” of utensils being scraped against plates. Perhaps this doesn’t sound irritating to you, although I’d like to see you wake up in the morning with a leopard-printed creepster standing in your doorway. After five months? Anything will irritate you, and that’s why roommates are so dangerous. Something you would forgive under normal circumstances suddenly becomes deathly irritating after several months. Crazy stuff like that will drive you up a wall.

So what have I learned? To be upfront, to exercise boundaries, to be friendly but firm.

When a roommate is incurably awful, such as the aforementioned amateur male model, I’ve learned to look to the future and to seek outside activities and friends. I try to get to know the people around me: Just the other day I borrowed a can-opener from my next-door neighbor, and it somehow turned into a party — that’s college for you.

My newest suitemate is a friend, and so far I’ve enjoyed living with her. Yet my other apartment-mate had a voicemail that proclaimed, “Please don’t leave me a message.” Did I judge her automatically? I couldn’t help it, because seriously, who has a voicemail like that? But now that she’s arrived, I actually really like her.

We can’t always expect our roommates to be our best friends, although it’s great if they are, but we can compromise and attempt some adult communication. So, here’s to roommates: May they teach us patience and wisdom, even when there’s a hamster living in their dresser.

Bethany Wynn is a junior sociology and French major. She can be reached at wynn at umdbk dot com.