17 Lesser-Known Qualities Of Perfect Roommates
Fine, flossy pubic hairs that, when found on a shower wall, cause one to think, “Our existence is evanescent and soft. We are flickering lights on a dock at night.”
Finding a roommate is hard. How can you tell who will fill your apartment with love and pancake-tinted light on Sunday mornings, and who will leave a trail of bedbugs and passive aggressive Swiffering in their wake? In my years sharing toilet seats with the bare asses of roommates from all walks of life, I’ve distilled my requirements to seventeen highly specific and lesser-known must-haves. These traits describe good roommates as well as good people, generally.
1. The ability to preserve paper towels, and to use dish towels when paper towels are not absolutely necessary.
2. An affinity for tissue box covers. Blonde wooden tissue box covers indicate particularly discerning taste and judgment, as well as economic security. As Saint Thomas Aquinas said, “To the man who has tissue box covers, no explanation is necessary.”
3. Pronouncing eggs “aigs.”
4. Ownership of sweatpants with a wide, flat, latte-colored drawstring. Both ends of said drawstring must hang four inches from waist. Drawstring must never be touched.
5. Thick jewel-toned socks with a tendency to pill during the holidays.
6. A calligraphic list of state-of-the-art Wi-Fi network names that will build the apartment’s brand and be a boon to the social lives of its inhabitants.
7. A desktop background featuring a ferocious animal in a docile state.
8. A look of horror and bewilderment, as indicated by a wrinkled nose and raised upper lip, upon mention of the word “bedbugs.”
9. Laundry detergent that is redolent of Portsmouth, New Hampshire OR what a well-ordered soul would smell like if “well-ordered soul” were a marketable scent for laundry detergent.
10. A caseless phone with thin scratches on its face in the shape of Castor and Pollux.
11. Wall hooks.
12. The spirit of a porpoise coupled with the communicative abilities of a dolphin.
13. A duvet containing the feathers of an animal that was once compassionate, a self-starter, intellectually curious, and beloved by its flock.
14. A laugh like a fistful of blackberries in one hand and skipping stones across the Hudson with the other.
15. The taking of deeper breaths in autumn.
16. Irises that recall your last night of college, when you saw Jupiter. It was as small as a jujube and you held it between your thumb and forefinger.
17. Fine, flossy pubic hairs that, when found on a shower wall, cause one to think, “Our existence is evanescent and soft. We are flickering lights on a dock at night.”
I’m currently looking for roommates in New York City. If you meet these requirements, please let me know: hsockel [at] jee mayl daht comme. 
This post was originally published at Human Parts on Medium.
