Even though I've lived my entire life with other women, I never particularly liked it. It was always a challenge living with only women around the clock. Who knew women were so bitchy and complained about everything? And damn, do we like to argue. It's like a hobby we all decided to take up. I love Momma and Mel to pieces, but there were times growing up when I thought that maybe things would have been a lot more laid back if there was a man in the house, just to take the edge off of all the female craziness.
It's probably why I normally hung out with only boys growing up. They were a lot less stressful and didn't let every day worries nag at them. We could all just go and hang out and not have to fuss over every single tiny thing. Besides, I always thought it was cool for me to be the only chick in the group. It made me feel special.
And now, here I was living with nothing but chicks. God, all of the hormones that would be flying around. I could already tell that this year was going to be drama infused and once the newness of everything wore off, we'd all be at each other's throats like in the Real World. I could see each of our faces flash across the screen with our names and our personalities all being defined according to cable television.
I'd probably be the old, boring American from Virginia who didn't understand the London scene with it's crazy outfits and funny words.
The first couple of days was intimidating for me. Here were these girls who seemed so young to me and were from the UK. They came in with their parents, mountains of personal things from home and bags of groceries to stock in their cupboards. I had never felt more like an outsider.
My immediate reaction was to close them all off and not worry about getting to know them. They were just my flatmates, nothing more. Perhaps we'd see each other in the kitchen, but that'd be it. I didn't have to get to know them, and they didn't have to get to know me.
But one evening, I was sitting in my room, alone, and changed my mind. I didn't want to be strangers with them. We were going to be co-existing with each other for our entire first year of university. It would be a mighty long year remaining a stranger to seven other girls in our house. I had two options; I could be the weird, quiet American who never socialized with any of them, or I could make an effort and at least get to know them before I decided they were all bitches that I never wanted to know ever again.
The thing was, I wasn't exactly up on the kid's lingo these days. Working with adults and being in the rat race for three years hadn't really prepared me for this situation. I knew how to communicate with business folks in Corporate America. I did not, however, know how to communicate with nineteen-year-old girls with accents I couldn't understand all the time. It would be a challenge that I'd have to overcome.
As I sat in my room, I tried to think of something that I could do in the kitchen that wouldn't make me look like I was loitering. I would need a reason to actually be in the kitchen other than to just sit and be awkward. I could cook something, but I didn't have any food at the moment other than Frosties. I didn't have any coursework since lectures hadn't started, nor did I have any books to read. It was quickly proving to be a difficult task for me. What was I going to do that wouldn't appear to be suspicious or lame?
I could hear them laughing and talking in the kitchen. They had already probably gotten to know each other properly and were probably already deciding when they were all going to go shopping together and eat together and watch movies together and do whatever else that young girls do together that I knew nothing about.
I searched around my room and found a pile of jeans that needed to be ironed.
That's it! I could iron all of my clothes in the kitchen! I remembered seeing the ironing board in there a couple of days ago. I could do that, socialize with them and not look like an idiot! I'd be killing multiple birds with one stone. I felt like a genius.
I scooped my giant pile of clothes in my arms, marched down the corridor and took a deep breath before I pushed the door open and walked inside.
Zoe, Helen, Fiona, Cat and Carlene were all in there. Zoe was sprawled out on the settee reading a book, Fiona was sat at the table with Carlene, Cat was up wandering around and Helen was making her dinner in the kitchen.
"Hi," I smiled at them all and claimed a small space against the wall where I'd set up shop and start my inconspicuous ironing.
They all smiled back at me and continued on with their conversation.
I walked over to where the ironing board was and did my best to stay out of the way and not draw attention to myself, which was quite difficult since the ironing board was rusty and sounded horrible when I opened it. They all must have thought I was a freak.
I don't remember what any of them were talking about. I don't remember myself saying anything of importance either. All I remember is being extremely focused on my ironing and getting out of there quickly as possible. Who was I kidding? I wasn't going to be able to relate to any of them. Mentally I was forty-five and they all reminded me of myself when I was seventeen. Children. They were mere babies who didn't know anything about life, like I did....because I was just so experienced.
After I was finished ironing all of my clothes, I put everything away and locked myself back into my room.
There. I did it. I socialized. Now nobody could ever say that I didn't try.
As I dozed off in bed, I decided that some of them weren't so bad. I immediately knew that Cat would be a problem child for me, but everyone else seemed decent. Carlene had a lot of Mom Qualities and seemed to appoint herself as the flat leader. Fiona and Zoe seemed sweet but were already clicking together and appeared to have a lot of things in common. And then there was Helen who seemed quiet and kept to herself. She seemed like me but....different at the same time. Just based simply on the short amount of time I was in the kitchen, quietly observing them all, I thought that I would probably get on with Helen the most and hoped that maybe we could become friends.
It was a horrible feeling starting over new again. Whoever said that it was a good idea to have a clean slate, was wrong. My entire life slate had been wiped from me and now it felt like such a huge amount of work needed to be done. I had to sort my phone out, my classes still hadn't been picked yet, I was trying to learn a brand new area with brand new people and brand new ways. And on top of it all I had to try to fit in and socialize with people? It was all too much too quickly. I wasn't coping very well and felt pretty low.
At the same time, I tried to remind myself that while it may be difficult for me at this particular moment, didn't mean that it would be like this all year. I've always been impatient and just wanted my comfort zone back. I wanted to cuddle with my comfort, hug my comfort and never let it go. Being uncomfortable was, well...uncomfortable.