Applying to college, I knew I would finally get the chance to reinvent myself – I no longer had to be thought of as the girl who always wore a ponytail with five thousand clips, or the girl who wore rock climbing shoes instead of actual shoes for a whole year, or the girl who was always just behind every trend. College was my chance to get away from who I was in middle school and be the stylish, cool, fun girl who went to parties and joined awesome clubs and had friends who were not just girls. All throughout middle school and high school I never had a group of guy friends. I thought college was time for that to change. When I got my housing assignment and found out I would be living on an all girls floor, I was not a happy camper. Not only did I not request an all girls floor, I very deliberately chose to be on a co-ed floor. When the option for single sex living popped up on my housing survey, I didn’t just look at it and think to myself, “you know, I’m kind of open to whatever,” NO, I thought, “Hell no, I am not about that all girls life.” Despite my annoyance, I did live on the all girls floor my entire freshman year, and I found that there were quite a few perks. Here is my list of reasons why living on an all-girls floor is surprisingly awesome:
1. It always smells good. Let’s face it, boys are gross. My floor always smelled like delicious shampoo and floral air fresheners. It was great.
Girls just smell nicer than boys.
2. When it’s that time of month, you never ever have to worry about running out. At the beginning of the year, they even put an entire box of free feminine products in our lounge. I stocked up so hard.
Tampons on tampons, amiright, ladies?
3. You don’t have to worry about what you look like. Chances are, the rest of your floor looks about as good as you do.
Want to walk around with your banana-avocado face mask on? Do it.
4. It’s usually pretty quiet. Girls often don’t want people messing up their rooms, so the rager count stays pretty low.
Quiet hours mean silence is expected. My friends and I got campus safety called on us for studying in the lounge. Boy did they look confused when they came to yell at us.
5. The common areas stay nice and clean. People never left garbage in our lounge. Period.
Oh the joy of not having to clean up after your floormates.
6. Need something to wear for a night out? No problem, your floor is basically a giant walk-in closet. It is guaranteed that someone on your floor wears the same size as you and also owns adorable things.
When you combine all the clothes on your floor, you could probably open your own branch of Forever 21.
7. There are no drunk, testosterone-filled boys to kick in the walls on the weekends. When I lived in a co-ed dorm my sophomore year, this was a weekly occurrence.
Seriously? Does it give you pleasure to prove your masculinity to the wall?
8. Floor Programs regularly consist of painting nails, decorating cookies, and talking about boobs. We had an entire program on breast exams where we got to play with fake boobs, talk to the nurse practitioners, and then decorate sports bras.
We decorated bras. Enough said.
9. For the most part, you don’t have to worry about getting checked out in your own living space. Because what’s more fun than walking around in your ratty old pajamas and getting checked out, right?
Let’s just avoid this fun objectification of our bodies all together.
10. There is a high probability that at any given time, someone on the floor will be watching Friends. On more than one occasion, I was watching Friends in my room and I could hear the theme song coming from the lounge.
Friends = everything happy in the world
11. You don’t have to run into half-naked men when you don’t want to. This means that you don’t have to wait behind a boy in his boxers when you just want to fill up your water bottle.
If it’s not acceptable for girls to do, it shouldn’t be acceptable for guys either.
12. You will always find someone willing to watch a chick flick with you. Sometimes you just need a night filled with romcoms and ice cream – other girls get that and need those nights too.
Watching romcoms on a comfy bed with a bestie vs. sitting on the floor watching boys play video games? I know which one I’d pick.
13. You won’t be made fun of for wanting a girly drink. Chances are, someone will even be able to make a really good one for you.
Why have shitty beer when someone can make you something delicious and pink?
14. The number of nice nail polishes on your floor could easily beat any nail salon out there. Plus, there will always be someone willing to paint your nails for you if it means they can procrastinate their work some more.
OPI and Essie for miles.
15. You can do adorable things, like have tea parties. My suitemates and I had tea parties on multiple occasions. Sometimes we even had cookies to go along with our tea.
There is nothing better than drinking tea, watching the snow fall outside, and talking to your makeshift family (aka your suitemates).
Sometimes I Wear Tiaras 