By: Sarah Gouldrup

Humor Editor

When I was a kid, my parents subjected me to a gross invasion of privacy, freedom, and liberty: they forced me to share a room with my brother. Yes, that’s right. During my peak age of adolescence (eight), I spent my nights avoiding my brother’s smelly socks, counting sheep to tune out his chronic mouth-breathing, and overall wishing I could cut off the bottom part of my bunk bed. Needless to say, when we moved to our next house, I was overjoyed to see a single twin bed waiting in the room my parents designated as mine. 

However, when college decisions started coming out, I realized I had to go through the roommate process all over again (if you could call Zach a roommate), but with one new bonus: I had all the selection power. As I went through the roommate process, which simply consisted of DM-ing strangers to my little heart’s content, I developed a list of red flags that not only scared me off, but should also scare off anyone. 

No Response: This one seems obvious, but if you DM someone and they don’t respond, do NOT text them again. I promise it is not as sly as you think it is when you delete the first DM and resend another one pretending like the aforementioned first DM never existed. 

Harry Styles Superfan: You know who I’m talking about — the girl who immediately asks who your favorite artist is in order to let you know that she has been to not one but FOUR of the Harry Styles Love on Tour concerts! Most of the time, you can find and avoid these girls before the DMs even begin, though; you just need to look for any sort of pink cowboy hat and brightly-colored feather boa.

Ratio-lover: The person DMs you, and everything is going swimmingly, so you do the rational thing and go to their Instagram to check it out. Sus out their vibe, if you will. Immediately, their follower to following ratio jumps out to you. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it’s when someone has around 2000 followers while only following close to 200. You’re not a famous person. You aren’t cool. Follow for follow until I die.

Rory Gilmore Wannabe: “Oh, my mom thinks we should do this dorm!” “Yeah, my mom joined this sorority, so I’m definitely going to as well.” There is around a 75 percent chance that Mom will show up to the dorm unannounced at the worst times. 

The Identity Thief: If your potential roomie starts getting a little too inquisitive, proceed with caution. For example, if they ask you for your height, weight, address, organ donor preference, or birthday, it might be a fake ID plot. As veteran identity fraud finder Victor Josifovski likes to say, “This is identity fraud.”