I’m startled by a vibration as I’m sitting in class. I pick up my phone and see the banner notification, “______ posted in the University of ______ Class of 2020 group.” I swipe left to read the message. It reads vaguely something along the lines of, “I’m gonna need a workout buddy, but I also love food. I love to go out but also will stay home and binge watch Netflix. Go (insert school mascot)!”

This is a college group Facebook post at its best! For those that aren’t aware of these Facebook groups, they are meant to be a way to meet and introduce yourself to your college class of peers. You give all your basic background info in a short but sweet profile describing who you are with the goal is to find a similar roommate. Unfortunately, in reality, they are more often a place for incoming freshmen to voice how they are all exactly the same as each other.

In these groups I find myself thinking of what to say so that someone, just someone, will realize what a great person I am and claim me as their freshman year roomie. I might begin typing out something sincere, “I’m Kate, from Boston, MA. Something I’m good at is assaulting people with sarcasm, and thinking I’m funnier than I actually am. I can recite every word to every rap song ever and sometimes if I try really hard I can spend an entire paycheck on clothes that are almost identical to the clothes I already own.”

As I think of what to say in the group I constantly question every word I type, continuously wondering if this sentence sounds weird or if my new classmates will get that joke. I look it over, copy, backspace, and change it to, “My studies are important to me, but I still plan on watching Netflix and going out. I also love food, but definitely will need a gym buddy.” These forums have clear and good intentions, but those good intentions fall short when almost everything said is verbatim what almost all the group members just said.

So despite my initial attempts to sound like me, I ultimately say a similar rendition of every other post. Some would argue that these groups are better than the traditional anonymous roommate matchers. However, if every Facebook post ends up saying the same thing as the one before how much more helpful is that?

These groups limit people from saying something different than everyone else, maybe because that post is out there for every group member to look at and judge.

No matter what the medium is, it’s hard to get complete strangers to know who you are in a paragraph. But when the quirks and oddities are left out, our roommate search becomes less genuine. So as I go to make a final post and secure my roomie I might forgo a sentence about Netflix and instead just tell her about my weird rapping capabilities. I hope all seniors going through this will be strong when the time comes to write our Facebook posts and save us all from reading another sentence about Netflix and gym-buddies.