I’m seeing a lot of photos on social media of friends’ children heading off to college. I can’t help but think back to 28 years ago when I made that same transition.
Obviously, there was no social media, so aside from an introductory letter and maybe a phone call about who was bringing a fridge, you met your roommate the day you moved in. Other than a hometown, I knew nothing about my roommate.
My dad was very encouraging in his own way. “Hey, remember, you don’t need to be best friends with this guy; you just need to be able to live with him.”
Move-in day. I walked in the room. He had already moved in, but was not in the room. He had taken the bottom bunk. Not cool, but had I arrived first, I would have done the same thing.
What really struck me was what was on the bed. A stuffed ALF doll.
On the wall was a poster. ALF for President!
I looked at my dad. He looked at me. “Wow,” was all he said.
Here’s the thing. My roommate and I got along great. But that’s it. There’s no Hollywood ending. We weren’t best friends. We didn’t live together again after that year. We don’t vacation together. But that doesn’t matter.
Life is not about collecting best friends. Find one or two, and you’re golden.
Life is about learning to get along with people who are different from you. It’s not that tough if you give it a chance.
Patrick Day 
Good post Patrick, but I think that we should take it a step higher. Learning to get along with people that are different than us makes life interesting and it gives you the opportunity to try to understand from where that person is coming. Heck – I am a pretty boring person. If I only got along with people like me then life would be pretty dull.
Given the time frame I’m surprised you didn’t throw an obvious Elvis Costello line in there….
And you need more tools on your peg board…not sure I’ve ever seen superglue treated as a tool on one
Great advice for someone moving to a new “college”.