What Are RAs’ Social Lives Like?

Jasmaine: I wasn’t there, but [my friends lived] in his complex, so he was their RA. There was this huge fire drill and I guess he had yelled at them because they weren’t on the sidewalk. They were in the middle of the street. You have to be a certain [number] of feet away from the building; that’s standard fire drill practice. I guess he wanted to be a good RA back then. He was actually trying to do his job properly. They weren’t following orders in his eyes, so he was yelling at them. [They told me] he was rude and belligerent and they said, “Stay away from him. He’s mean.”

And then my junior year, we were on staff together. When we were opening the buildings for the residents to come in, we were playing team-building games, and we got to know each other. We realized we both liked Desperate Housewives, and we had so much in common. Then I told him, “I’ve never really interacted with you, but I had this bad connotation for the last two years and this is why.”

Beck: And it almost cost you your friendship.

Jasmaine: We would’ve never been friends. But I’m not that stubborn once I see a person is good. After opening, we were best buddies. We watched Desperate Housewives every Sunday together; we sat together in staff meetings.

Alex: We would have “A and J time,” just chill, and watch TV.

Jasmaine: Our buildings were right next to each other.

Alex: Across the street. She would always keep an eye out for me.

Jasmaine: I could see when his light was on and I would call him on his room phone. I was the only one that had that number, so he knew it was me. It’d be 2 o’clock in the morning, and I’d be like, “Why is your light on? Come over.” And he’d say, “Okay, I’ll be there in two minutes.” Sometimes college is the best.

Beck: Besides Desperate Housewives, what else did you bond over?

Alex: I joined a fraternity, and Jasmaine was definitely there for me. I had to go through a grueling test, and she would give me words of encouragement. Also, I was not the best of RAs, so Jasmaine would always come in clutch for me. If I was going to a party when I should’ve been doing something else, she’d switch [shifts] for me and things like that.

Also, I was her personal bartender when she and I were of age, because we had a wet campus.

Jasmaine: Sex on the Beach, that was my go-to drink.

Beck: How does being an authority figure to the peers you live with change your social life in college?

Alex: I was always in a fishbowl. I felt like I was not just Alex, but Alex the RA. So even though we are all paying the same tuition, if you’re at a party, you’re always looked at like, “You’re an RA; why are you here?” You always have to be on your best behavior because your job is to be a policy enforcer. And if you’re not [following] policies yourself, believe me, students are going to tell on you.

Jasmaine: I had most of my friends defined [in] my freshman year before I was an RA. And then I made friends with RAs like Alex. It’s hard to work around RA-duty nights. I didn’t get to lots of clubs, or really get to start hanging out a lot until my senior year. I was taking maximum credits, I was in five organizations, and then I was also an RA. It was hard, but my friends understood. If they wanted to go smoke weed, they didn’t put me in compromising positions, where I would have to report them. Because they knew I would.