Meet the Roommates

When my mother found out during my junior year of high school that I had been secretly dating someone, she scolded me, grounded me, and forbade me from seeing him again. A strong reaction, but this was a woman used to micromanaging her unruly eldest's adolescence. Now that I'm in college, she can only worry from 3,000 miles away that I'll make rash romantic decisions. Little does my mother know how good a job my friends are doing in loco parentis.

Clandestine meetings, for instance, are impossible to conceal. One summer during high school, I sneaked out of the house every night for an entire month without getting caught. Now I wouldn't last a week. Every time I come home in the wee hours without a good excuse, like a paper to finish, I know three girls will be waiting to grill me. When an unfamiliar male shows up at my door, there's an unspoken expectation that we'll rehash his life story over brunch the next morning. In college, you share clothes, classes, and common rooms. Privacy is communal property.

I'm much choosier about what I share with my mother. During our phone calls, I spit out a pithy description of the man of the moment (“overworked law student” or “much-older CIA agent”). She usually shoots down the suitor on the basis of some minute fault.

Now I live with even tougher critics. My mother hopes I'll marry someone well educated, but my roommates see no other viable alternative, since they're Ivy Leaguers themselves. (This is probably why the romance with “slightly spacey guitarist” was so short lived.) They are also surprisingly future oriented. By third dates, they've projected the boyfriend's earning potential and considered the phonetic implications of last-name hyphenation. While my mother is realizing slowly that she will eventually have grandchildren, my friends have already chosen my wedding dress.

In some ways, my girlfriends are looking at the same bottom line as my mother. As a result, I've learned that navigating romantic waters with guidance from friends is no more reliable than using a parental compass. Unless I take their advice with a grain of salt, I'm doomed never to date a poet or an activist.

My best friend at college is thankfully less prone to digging for details or preemptive speculation. Oftentimes, Jason tunes out when I try to tell him about new love interests. He does not want to become invested in a fling any more than I do. And he has reason to be cautious. Invariably, most beaus become lessons learned and amusing anecdotes. There was the architect whom everyone fondly refers to as “the soulless one.” There was the law student deemed “fun but not stable.” And then there was the ex-boyfriend who endeared himself to everyone. When he flew to Boston over Easter weekend to visit me, I was looking forward to seeing someone I missed and to confirming that I really was over him. The last thing I expected was for my friends to promptly fall for him. By the time my ex left, he had charmed them all. I had been thinking that the boyfriend bar was set impossibly high, so it was refreshing to finally introduce my friends to someone they approved of. I just wish he weren't my ex.

When he wasn't around, I was bombarded with questions. Everyone assumed we were hooking up (we weren't) and suggested not so subtly that we date again (we wouldn't). That Sunday, my mother called shortly after I had dropped him off at the subway station. “How was his visit?” she asked. I told her it was nice seeing him again and launched into an account of our weekend. But my mother could not care less about the impressive itinerary I had planned. She had the same priorities my friends did. Cutting me off, she asked, “Did you sleep together?” “We're just friends,” I assured her. But even if we weren't, my mother didn't have to worry. My roommates approved.

Lena Chen is a sophomore at Harvard College. E-mail comments to coupling@globe.com.