Bicker: Freshman edition

Ah, the social stresses of freshmen room draw.

Asked to form ourselves into convenient groups of one to 10 students, we must make tough choices. Do I ‘sign in’ with my existing roommate or throw myself out into the social fray, ‘bickering’ my way to a group with the possibility of getting hosed if I don’t have the right connections? Do we complete the quad with the vaguely connected friend from precept or hold out for someone we know better? Do I join with friends or go independent?

Room draw has all the social obstacles of Bicker with none of the beast-induced frivolity.

For those with the social draw of the bicker clubs, finding a fourth roommate requires an interview process. What are your sleep habits? Christmas lights: safety hazard or beacon of awesomeness? What are your thoughts on being sexiled? Would you be obliged to swallow a goldfish? A single wrong answer can be the difference between acceptance and rejection. It is not enough to know just one member of the threesome to make the cut — the connections must run deep. There is always the possibility that the potential member will get hosed and need to find another group to ‘sign into’ or draw into a single.

There are those who choose to ‘go independent,’ hoping for a high room draw to get a single room. And like independents-to-be who are asked which club they are joining, these ‘free agents’ face an awkward “oh” in response to the acknowledgement that they don’t have a draw group. There seems to be an unspoken taboo against being unclaimed, unmatched or ungrouped — as if it were Princeton-code for unwanted instead of an inevitable outcome of an imperfect system.

Both eating club decisions and freshmen room draw involve a choice of certain groups of friends over others — a long term commitment to a small number of people. They both affect the experiences you will have over the next year. Both ask participants to make a significant social decision on the basis of limited information. The jaunts to the Street and occasional dinners with members are akin to the late-night study sessions with potential roommates: They only hint at what daily life will be like, without the important trivialities of snoring, personal space, hygiene habits to contend with. Though to a decidedly smaller extent, freshmen room draw holds all the potential for social successes and pitfalls that inevitably accompany the formation of groups.

But the difference between the two systems is that eating club decisions are optional. Those that don’t find eating clubs to their liking can join a co-op, sign up for the meal plan or be independent, whereas every freshmen must form some type of draw group. This creates a system where the freedom to choose one’s roommates can become a complex test of social acceptance or rejection, with no choice but to participate. For all the stories of groups that form easily, there are more of people who can’t quite fill their room, people who have been kicked out of draw groups, people without matches, or people who felt pressured to join with friends knowing that their rooming habits just don’t mesh.

The problem is not in the room-draw process itself, but in our own unrealistic expectations of it. Because we don’t want to just find a group of friends to live with, but a perfect group, an epic room, a legendary year. We inflate the seemingly innocent process of finding a comfortable rooming situation to the freshman social equivalent of picking an eating club. We have to get the Turret rooms in Witherspoon; we have to draw into a good hallway; we have to find a fourth quad member who is good friends with everyone in the room, easy to be around and hasn’t been snatched up yet.

We have to. Because a small quad on a bad hallway with an average roommate might as well be the room-draw equivalent of watching sadly as excited bickerees dance around in shaving cream and champagne.

Rebecca Kreutter is a freshman from Singapore. She can be reached at rhkreutt@princeton.edu.