Finding a roommate can feel a lot like online dating. You scroll through Instagram, judge someone based on simple photos and ask yourself whether your personalities might mesh.
Although you may have never met the other person, this method of finding college roommates has become normalized. Nearly two years ago, Lily Kate Wells and Mary Madeline Lauve were navigating the digital process of looking for a roommate in their senior year of high school.
Lauve, a general business major from Shreveport, La., came across Wells, a sophomore management major from Denver. She immediately appreciated Wells’ aesthetic based on her social media accounts.
The two strangers reached out to each other through Instagram direct messages (DMs) and Snapchat and quickly began texting every day. Their conversations were direct and easy, and before long, they were introducing each other to their friend groups, despite never having met in person.
“It felt like I had known her forever,” Wells said.
Then, without ever meeting face-to-face, they made the spontaneous decision to live together, with Wells simply saying, “Let’s just be roommates.”
Even as strangers, both felt an immediate sense of familiarity. When they finally met in person, that feeling only grew stronger, and the two instantly clicked.
Lauve said, “She just became my best friend,” in the blink of an eye.
They joined different sororities and paved separate paths but made a point to stay involved in each other’s lives and to include one another. Now as sophomores, they have both reflected on how a random decision shaped their college experience, with Lauve saying that a friendship like theirs is rare.
“I always tell my mom you only meet a few people that are your best friend, and (Wells is) one of them, ” Lauve said.
The friends expressed that the rooming arrangement seemed like such a miniscule decision at the time, but it turned into a meaningful friendship.
“I never thought that would come from a random decision,” Wells said.
The two want to room together again in the future, and Lauve said she already knows Wells will be in her wedding.
That same digital leap of faith also brought Annabel Pierce, a marketing major from Saugatuck, Mich., and Gretchen Piatt, a journalism major from Columbus, Ohio, together — an outgoing message that turned into an inseparable friendship.
Now sophomores, Pierce and Piatt first connected in what Pierce called “the most typical college-roommate-way possible: Instagram DMs.”
“I had seen Gretchen’s post on the Ole Miss Class of 2028 (Instagram) page,” Pierce said. “Gretchen reached out first around Christmas time of our senior year of high school. But we didn’t officially meet in-person until freshman orientation.”
Pierce and Piatt’s relationship deepened through sorority recruitment when they both opened Delta Gamma bid cards.
“Going through (sorority) recruitment freshman year was super fun and stressful at the same time,” Piatt said. “When Annabel and I opened up our bid cards, we were so happy that we were going to be sisters.”
The two said they cannot imagine life without the other, as they are attached at the hip. Their friends often ask where the other is when one shows up alone, which is a rare occurrence.
“We instantly clicked,” Pierce said. “We were lucky; some people don’t get that.”
The two currently live together and plan to do so for the rest of their time at UM.
“Some friendships start with a long past and many years, but ours simply started with a silly DM with way too many exclamation marks,” Pierce said.
