Over the Line
I had several different living situations in college: a dorm with 3 roommates; a house with 3 roommates and a, shall we say, disagreeable landlady; an apartment with one roommate, which progressed to an apartment with one roommate and one boyfriend, which progressed to an apartment with one fiancé. With the exception of the dorm situation and the apartment + fiancé situation, Lauren was the only constant roommate. (And thank goodness for that, because she was a damn good roommate!) And so, although there were 8 different people who I called “roommate” in college, whenever I talk about My College Roommate, it’s Lauren I’m referring to.
(Although I realize that’s a bit of a moot point now that I’ve introduced her and can just call her Lauren instead of My College Roommate from here on out.)
When Lauren (My College Roommate) and I moved out of the house that we shared with 2 other people during our Sophomore year and into our own apartment, we both breathed a sigh of relief. For a number of reasons, moving out of that house was a wonderful thing. We could relax, make our own house rules, and have people over for Drinking Nights whenever we wanted. (Do I need to explain Drinking Nights? Just in case it’s not as self-explanatory as I think it is: there was drinking involved. And usually a horrible movie to be made fun of. And drinking.) Life was good.
I believe it was at one Drinking Night shortly after we’d moved that we came to the consensus that our apartment was officially Over the Line. As in, nothing you say will be crossing any lines because we already live way on the other side of said lines.
This isn’t to say we were hugely offensive or anything. (Well, maybe we were offensive, but not to each other.) Sure, we made plenty of off-color jokes, but the off-colorness wasn’t what made them funny. Well, it was, but not in the way you think. What made them funny was just how ridiculously off-color they were — the fact that they were so much more offensive than any of us ever would be in real life. Basically, in laughing at the potentially offensive jokes, we were making fun of the type of people who would actually say such things with complete seriousness. Because how ridiculous is that? Pretty damn ridiculous.
So at our place, you were welcome to joke about whatever you wanted and cross any lines you wanted. Because we already lived over the line, we knew better than to think you were seriously being offensive.
(Of course, even we had standards. You could not, for example, use “gay” or “retarded” as a derogatory adjective and get away with it.)
We had some good times, living over the line. So good that it was a bit of an adjustment when I went from that apartment to Spain, where I spent most of my time with slightly more conservative people. We had a great time hanging out, but for the first week or so I constantly had to remind myself that the rest of the world did not, in fact, live over the line. I think I only offended one or two people before I remembered which side of the line I was supposed to be on.
These days Tim and I don’t necessarily live all the way over the line, but we do uphold some of those good old over-the-line ideals. I recently made a comment to Tim that may be considered “over the line” by some people. And we laughed heartily. A few days later, as I was reflecting on the fun of that moment, I realized: “There aren’t a lot of people I could say something like that to. Thank god Tim understands the joys of living over the line.”
What about you? Did you and your college roommates have house rules that “outsiders” might not have understood? Do you wish that you had someone as cool as Lauren as your college roommate? (The answer to that question should definitely be an enthusiastic “Yes!”) Do you think I should dedicate an entire post to Drinking Nights?
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I say YES! Please dedicate an entire post about drinking night. I love drinking stories. And you know, the only roomate I’ve ever had was Keven – and well we can see how well that went. I’m sad that I missed out on the college roomate drama’s though…really sad.
My roommates were amazing as individuals, but between junior and senior year they got in a big fight (they still don’t speak, although they recently became friends on FB). So I had to run interference for most of senior year. Not fun!
I got stuck with an awful roommate my freshman year, and again sophomore year. By my junior year, I had convinced my dad that I was adult enough to live in my own apartment. I loved living alone in my little studio (complete with porno closet…I feel a blog post coming on). Ted was actually the first “roommate” that I enjoyed living with. I still love that we can be completely nutty together with no one to judge us. Jokes about poop are a recurring theme…
Your college roommate, Lauren, is amazing. AMAZING! I always loved coming over to your apt. Although I was frequently offended by your crossing the line so often.
Oh, and my college roommate experience was kind of intense. Good people, i was very fortunate. However, freshman year, three of us were gay and the 4th was a theater major, scratch that, Drama major. And being in NYC, everyone ever wants to come visit, so we constantly had guests (and one of my roommates had a lot of other guests, if you know what i’m sayin). So lots of in and out (that wasn’t meant to be that dirty, but a lot of that happened i think too). But all nice guys who i stayed friends with.
Daw, you were a damn good roommate too and you are SO totally who I’m referring to when I say “my college roommate” as well! DAW again!
I do miss living over the line, but a post about drinking nights could certainly do a little to cure my nostalgia. I mean, how could a tradition that caused the puke bath, the Hooters chicken wings puke sink, and that spot where Tim puked on the floor when we accidentally got drunk NOT get me all nostalgic?
I wish I were kidding…
[...] with quite a strong lead thanks to her recent jaunt around China, we have Lauren (my college roommate) with a whopping 720 [...]
I had two roommates in college. With one, we were totally over the line. There was no topic off limits. We used to scare her boyfriend. It’s just something we have. There’s no one else who could ever get it.
i think you only worry about going over the line because you’re Polish. you damn Polish person.
or something.
my junior year, the semester before i left for australia, i lived with my best college friend, Audrea. Hmmm, I have a thing for Auds I guess. Anyway, I think we lived over the line. I think Edgar and I live over the line at times too…saying things that we would never actually mean in real life, but thinking they are hilarious because they are so ridiculous. I feel like I wrote exactly what you just did, but that is just to prove I know exactly what you are talking about. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a blog called Over the Line where everyone just says random shit! Yes! That is a great idea!
My friends and i have a theory about this and it’s pretty damn offensive. we even came up with an acronym to explain our entire generations ideas of what’s funny. It’s called Generation RDB and I will not tell you on this blog what it means, but maybe in an email.
It’s way offensive, even moreso than our first attempt to name our gen..
That was Generation HIV as in the virus. Our theory is that we’ve always lived in a world with AIDS (and referring to South Park) we think AIDS is finally funny.
So Gen HIV might explain our generation whereas generation RDB is way way way more offensive and possibly only correlated to us. (BTW, the guy who came up with this name is known to cross the line, and upon meeting a German at a party asked if “they were still killing Jews there”). So that gives you an indication of how offensive RDB is. If you still want to know, ask away…: )
[...] in college, when My College Roommate and I lived over the line, Drinking Nights were a much-anticipated weekly event. Sometimes there was a theme, sometimes there [...]