Two days before the roommate selection deadline, I was on my senior trip in Gulf Shores, Alabama, when I got a message through the housing portal from a girl I had never met.

She was going to MSU. I was going to MSU. Neither of us had a roommate. That’s about all we knew about each other.

After a few messages, we decided to live together. Not knowing anything about her and being so close to the selection deadline, I had about as random a roommate as anyone could get.

At the time, it felt terrifying. Looking back, it was one of college’s biggest blessings.

For out-of-state students, the pressure to find a roommate is overwhelming. To me, everyone in Mississippi seemed to know someone from high school or their community they were already set to room with. Meanwhile, I was scrolling through Instagram posts and roommate bios on ZeeMee, trying to decide whether a stranger’s favorite childhood cartoon or sorority recruitment plans meant I could survive living in the same room for 10 months.

It is easy to believe the safest option is to room with someone you already know. For some people, that works. However, for others, living with a friend can blur boundaries that otherwise would be clear.

One of the best parts of having a roommate who was not already my best friend was that we could set boundaries without feeling like our relationship depended on them. We were not striving for best friend status. We were just trying to live well together.

When roommates begin as strangers, the relationship defines itself naturally. There is less pressure to do everything together and less guilt about setting boundaries. Sometimes, a roommate does not have to be your best friend. There is no failure on your part.

A random roommate gives both people permission to be realistic in the very surreal stage of life. Students can be kind to their roommates without being inseparable. They can enjoy each other’s company without feeling responsible for including each other in every plan. They can set boundaries without stepping on the toes of an existing friendship.

Granted, my freshman-year roommate is still one of my best friends. We still keep in touch. However, if we had not become close, I still think the experience would have been valuable.

Random roommates force students to grow up a little. Living with someone in a tiny room already requires communication, patience and compromise. Living with someone unfamiliar requires even more of it.

That does not mean random roommates are perfect. However, common problems are not exclusive to random roommate assignments. Friends can be messy and inconsiderate, too. The difference is that random roommates often enter the room with fewer assumptions, as students have to build the relationship from the ground up.

Brown University has maintained a long-held practice of randomly pairing first-year roommates. According to its website, students answer 40 multiple-choice questions about cleanliness, study habits, bedtime and how connected they hope to be with their roommate, but the process remains rooted in randomness and is meant to help students meet others they would not otherwise know.

Without my freshman-year roommate, I would have missed an entire cast of characters I might never have met. I met people outside my dorm, my sorority and the version of college I had built for myself.

Every roommate situation is a gamble, whether you know the person or not. At least with a random roommate, expectations are softer and boundaries are easier to set. Random roommates are not something to fear. They can be an opening to new people, new communities and a more mature version of yourself. Sometimes, the person you never would have picked is exactly who you needed.