Recently, I asked the BuzzFeed Community, "If you ever lived with a rich roommate, what's the most out-of-touch thing they ever said or did?"
Here are 15 of their top answers:
1. "They asked me what it was I did every day that took me out of the house… I was going to work."
—gracemcgill
2. "One of my roommates was a nice enough person, but she didn't really have a grasp on the difference in finances between her and the rest of us. She didn't clean up after herself because she thought that housekeeping would do that, and one week she took off on her own to go to a reptile expo in the next state to buy a really expensive ball python, expecting the rest of us to float her with groceries until she got her next allowance."
—torbielillies
3. "She paid for Charmin toilet paper and would bring it in and take it out with her as she went in/out of the bathroom, so the rest of us would have to use generic that was free in the dorms..."
—romiimor
4. "I had a college roommate whose dad was an executive for Nestlé. After a big exposé was published about the company allegedly contributing to child slavery in Africa, she said to me (a Black person descended from slaves), 'Daddy says every big company does that. What's the big deal?' Her delivery was so nonchalant, I almost slapped her."
"Another time, she screamed at her dad for buying her the wrong luxury car for her birthday.
Last I checked, she embarrassed herself (and her family, I'm presuming) on a reality show. This was years ago, but her social media accounts are still deactivated."
—aerinford
5. "My freshman year roommate's family was quite wealthy. When spring break came around, she suggested we all spend it in Hawaii. When I said I couldn't afford the $500 ticket, she gave me a flabbergasted look."
"She couldn't seem to understand that $500 is a lot of money to some people, especially a broke college student."
—sonjayandl
6. "Early 20s, both of us. Her living on her own was an 'experiment.' She would blow all her grocery money in one go — NOT on groceries — and Mommy and Daddy would give her more, something like $500 total per week on top of paying her rent for her. Her mother would also come over and deep clean her room and bathroom and do her laundry once a week."
"She had a part-time job working at Daddy's company, something like only 20 hours per week filing or whatever, but she would call out and receive zero consequences.
Never touched a dirty dish, never touched a broom, just sat on the couch, drank, watched TV, and shopped all day, every day.
Once the year was up, she moved back in with her parents and would say to anyone listening that living on her own was 'so hard' and that she 'felt the struggle' of other people going through the 'same thing.' REALLY?"
—morgan_le_slay
7. "A fraternity brother of mine got all of his clothes dry-cleaned on a weekly basis. I don't think he knew how to do a load of laundry."
—hlane09
8. "In college, all freshmen had to live in the dorms, so there were some pretty wealthy students who would probably have otherwise lived in swanky apartments or houses. My roommate got upset with her father when he told her he would be sending a town car to pick her up and take her to the airport. She wanted a limo."
"I, on the other hand, couldn't afford to go home at all for Thanksgiving, but it never crossed her mind that I would be less than completely sympathetic to her whining."
—savana221
9. "It was my sister's roommate. The hallway had racks of clothing going down it because she had so many clothes they couldn't all fit in her room. She went shopping and came home with seven pairs of the same boot but in different colors because she couldn't pick between them."
—blueshark77
10. "My first year of college after taking a gap year, my three roommates and I were 19–20. One girl came from a very well-off family, who lived only about a half hour from the college. They were paying for her tuition and residence fees. Her closet was literally to the point where she had to wrestle to hang anything in it because it was so full. Her mom used to come visit every other weekend or so, and would show up saying, 'I went to the mall, and I didn't know what you would want, so I got you these' while unloading huge bags of things from Lululemon, Roots, and other expensive stores. My roommate would yell and swear at her mom for getting her the 'wrong color' of something."
"She would then shove the new clothes to the back of her closet and either never look at them again or try to sell them online.
The rest of us were struggling to afford groceries lmao."
—adelaidehawthorne
11. "My college roommate didn't know how to clean things. She had housekeepers growing up and never learned. She thought cleaning the bathroom was dousing it in chemicals and then shutting the door."
—karap
12. "Back when I was 17, I had a (slightly older) roommate who was overall a nice person, who just happened to spend absurd amounts of money while the rest of us were working while in school (scholarship) just to buy the necessities. However, one time that blew my mind was when they bought their mom a $2,000 purse and then complained that they just didn't know what to do with it after finding out their mom already had the exact same one."
—lmineomarinello
13. "My freshman year roommate was apparently very wealthy. On the first day I met her, she informed me that she would be able to live the rest of her life off of the interest on the inheritance she already had from her grandfather and that she would get the other half once she graduated college (with any degree at all). Her motto was 'C's get degrees.'"
"There was the obvious chronic spending (she had a big thing for lights and lamps), but even worse, she brought a boy back to our room who found and ripped off both our credit cards. Mine was actually my parents that they had given me for emergencies. We figured out mine had been stolen after one $50 charge popped up, and my parents shut it down. Her family didn't figure it out until over $15,000 had been charged to her card."
—ashleyrmacquarrie
14. "Freshman year of college, my roommate complained about how her parents were mad she'd spent $500 in two weeks on food delivery…while on an unlimited meal swipes plan that let her get into the food hall that had food out from 5:00 a.m. to midnight."
"Same roommate would wear Gucci and Hermes to frat parties. Conversely, I was on a scholarship and had panic attacks about not getting financial aid for the next year."
—baileys4fbb78b02
15. And finally: "The weirdest thing about living with a wealthy roommate is how often she would remind me or tell me she was wealthy. Like, at least a few times a week, she casually brought up, 'Well, my family is wealthy/has money, etc.'"
"As a 20-year-old, I didn't think it was that weird or rude, like I do now. I just thought, 'Wow, wealthy people are really out of touch.'"
—romiimor
Some entries have been edited for length/clarity.
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