Senior journalism major Ellen Fishel is a typical college student — except she lives with five boys.
Think about the last time you went to a restaurant — you probably saw at least one couple out on a date.
But let’s examine the scene a little more closely. What made you so sure that male and female eating together was a couple?
Maybe they were holding hands, or maybe the first-date awkwardness radiating from their table was suffocating. But maybe you just saw me and Brad — just two roommates trying to avoid cooking yet again.
Brad is both my best friend and roommate of three years, so we do practically everything together at this point. (It also helps that we have a miraculous ability to always be craving the same foods. Seriously, it’s weird). But it hardly crosses my mind just how couple-y we must look from an outsider’s perspective.
Every once and awhile, though, something serves as a reminder that “roommates” is not the obvious relationship people jump to when they see a guy and a girl out by themselves.
Poor Brad usually takes the brunt of it. Time and time again, he gets judgemental looks from waiters when he asks them to split the check. It’s even worse if I owe him money and pay for everything. “God, what a freeloading boyfriend you have,” the server’s pitying eyes say to me as I hand them my debit card.
The misreads aren’t just confined to the restaurant world either. Just recently, an acquaintance of ours asked another roommate if we were secretly hooking up because he saw me under the covers in Brad’s bed. To squelch all rumors: Brad has a Tempur-Pedic bed and it’s the comfiest thing in the world. So yes, I spend a LOT of time under those covers. And believe me, there’s nothing sexual about me accidentally falling asleep watching Netflix in the middle of the afternoon (which happens too often).
Considering how close Brad and I are, I can’t really fault an outsider for making these mistakes. We just continue splitting checks and laughing it off. But hey, maybe I’ll just start letting him pay for me so he can keep his ego from bruising — aren’t I nice?
