Just general clashes with our beliefs, upbringing and personal experiences.

Met her at the beginning of the year as I take a degree that has a very small number of students enrolled. Thought she was just a slightly naive small town girl who moved to the city. I can relate as I basically moved out of home at 14 for boarding school, so no big deal. The semester went on and we hung out, talked and I realized that she was a pretty committed Christian. Again, no big deal. I've got one friend who's a Hindu and another that's Muslim. I also have a Mormon friend. I think another's Presbyterian but I'm not sure. All are pretty committed to their religions but don't really talk too much about it except when asked as a friend. Even then, they're pretty casual about it. Like; "yeah we have an eight legged god but there are also weirder ones out there. Too many so don't ask because I don't know all of them". I think it could be that we've all known each other for such a long time and live in a crazy small city which happens to be crazily multicultural by American standards, so there's been discussion, acceptance and learning of each other's belief system. And we're very casual people - my Muslim friend is one of the best comedians I know and her comedy isn't always clean! My Hindu friend is one of the best cooks and I grew a love of spicy food from eating her meals.

So anyway, getting back to the Christian girl I met this year. I just saw her Christianity as no big deal. But it did come in between us more and more often as the first semester went on. We were willing to put our differences aside though. Then other issues started coming in between us. She's an extremely well mannered, reserved but happy go lucky person. No problem with that either. But as time went on, we started to distance as things became apparent. I remember waiting at some lights waiting to cross with her older sister who happened to be visiting from another city. Some guys went past on skateboards. I recognized them from our dorm level. They weren't even on the footpath as they rounded the corner beside cars on the road, so weren't too close to people who could easily be knocked over by them. But the girl just snapped her head to the ground and shook her head. I asked her what was wrong and what was on the ground. She just said that she was thinking. I nodded, brushed it off and carried on normally, but still thought it was a somewhat weird reaction.

Another time, we were coming back from a lecture for some lunch and she was just constantly complaining about the couple who were smoking right outside the pizza shop at the bottom of our building. It wasn't whiny complaining but I felt a little annoyed by it. So I just straight up told her that I used to smoke and that my father and most adults I grew up around smoked, so it wasn't a big deal for me. But I could understand where she was coming from as I'd noticed just how noxious cigarette smoke is to a non smoker since giving up. A weekend later, I came back from visiting some old friends halfway across the city a bit drunk and more than likely reeking of weed and cigarettes. It wasn't a big party but my friends are notoriously big drinkers and it was good just hanging out and laughing as I hadn't really laughed at all since meeting her as we have pretty different humor and she really doesn't get mainstream kind of jokes. I went straight into my room and fell asleep, careful not to bother anyone as by this point I had just moved in to her apartment as I didn't really get on with my old roommates and wanted to move to a quieter apartment. I don't really drink that much anymore as I kind of gave up at the same time I gave up smoking. My old roommates were pretty rowdy every weekend and Wednesday so it got a bit annoying. Plus I've seen how ridiculously happy drunk my father gets and my brother as well. And my family has a history of alcoholism, especially on my mother's side. Best to avoid problems early on. The girl looked at me as if I was a leper for the entire next day and when I asked if everything was alright, she explained that she'd never seen a hungover person before. That woke me up and I accepted this as I clearly remember seeing my older brother dragging my dad to bed when he was drunk as an eight year old. That was the first time I'd really seen my dad drunk as it was summer and my parents were only together for a year at the time. It was a bit scary considering all the stories I'd been told about drunk people before that. But afterwards, I got used to it and my dad cut his drinking down, but it was a common thing for me to see him drunk sometime during the summer as I grew up.

I also was involved with gangs as my boarding school was for troubled youth and during my time there, I learnt a lot about life and had many boarding brothers and sisters. A lot of them were victims of dysfunctional families, drugs, violence and poverty as well as the system. Social workers coming in to transfer students into the school's custody was a common thing. Parents with cigarettes hanging out their mouths and dressed to the nines in colours was common too, though no gang fights were allowed as the residential staff were pretty good at keeping the peace. Most of the staff were ex gang members themselves. It was an experience that I really appreciate as the ethic of doing chores was drilled into me as well as the collective mindset of caring for each other. It also gave me the insight into how the half of society lived. Most were just people who were born into the cycle and my friends are probably going to repeat the cycle sadly. I can't do anything but sit back and watch. It was at boarding school that I finally felt accepted and given support as a lot of other students were also misunderstood troublemakers. Me coming from a stable, non affiliated family was the only difference. Many were shocked to learn that my mum owned my childhood home for 15 years as moving around was so common for them.

When I explained all of this to my roommate, she accepted it but I could feel her distance from me a little. I didn't let it get to me and carried on like normal. I've had worse experiences, like having a chair thrown at me by my friend when she was furious at me. A metal chair. Another and I brawled pretty hard and that was a big deal as we were known to get on well and were feared; her for her toughness and I for telling the truth. I lost that fight but we're still on good terms and she's grown up since then. But the cinch really came when we and another roommate were watching that movie about that woman who moves to Thailand I think. Can't remember the name. The topic of herbal medicine and meditation featured a lot in the movie and my roommate kept asking me and my other roommate what it all meant. We were happy to explain but after the movie finished, she basically acted like it was all wrong to have that in the world. Right at this moment, my good friend who just happens to be flamboyantly gay decided to video call me. I answer and he initiated the conversation by asking how many little pink friends I had made so far and that he couldn't wait to meet them. My other roommate burst out laughing and went to her room to calm down while I hung up and promised to call back once I had more privacy. My roommate is just staring at me with an extremely pale face and I apologized for the randomness as I had not expected my friend to say that right away. Afterwards, I asked whether she knew of any gay people. She said that she did but I think it was just out of politeness as I've seen her subtly try to avoid our openly gay RA.

In the end I basically confessed that I felt like we didn't 'click' as friends and that out of all the religions in the world, I disliked Christianity the most. She accepted it all but also told me that as a girl, I probably shouldn't be so direct with my opinions. In hindsight, she was probably feeling hurt but I'd had enough and realized that we were never going to be more than acquaintances who got along most of the time and that I needed to tell the truth about how I felt.

To this day, I still am sharing an apartment with her and we get along but there's definitely less awkwardness between us as we understand how we feel now. We don't speak about the things that we don't agree on but the situation is better than pretending everything's fine.

I don't oughtrightly dislike her, but sometimes different life experiences and beliefs can drive people apart, considering the fact that we were pretty excited to know each other in the beginning.