Why does my roommate hang her underwear on the wall?
I am a freshman in college and it’s almost time to move out, and all year I have been puzzled by one thing my roommate does. When we moved in at the beginning of the year, one of the first things she did was put a little command hook on the wall and put a clothing hanger on it. She hangs her underwear on that clothing hanger on the wall and has all year. It’s only one pair at a time, and she rotates which ones are hanging up, but there’s almost always a pair hanging up. She has a whole empty closet so it is not because she doesn’t have space to hang them in her closet, there must be a point to having them visibly on the wall. It doesn’t bother me in my day to day life but when my family and friends come over it feels very awkward that her underwear is just hung on the wall. She doesn’t have any art or decorations up so it looks pretty weird that the only thing on the wall is just her underwear. I do have a photo of it but it feels kind of weird to post a picture of someone else’s underwear without them knowing. She’s pretty modest and shy generally, like she changes in the bathroom and when she ran out of sleep shorts she slept in jeans instead of just underwear. So it puzzles me why she feels comfortable hanging her underwear on the wall but is so shy in other ways.
To be honest, I’m mostly just confused why she does it.
I have run through what feels like every possible situation in my head. Maybe they’re tight and she wants to stretch them out before wearing them. Maybe she’s really bad at remembering to change her underwear and wants them where she can see them so she remembers. For a bit I thought maybe she was airing them out after she wears them, but there’s never a smell so I’m guessing they’re clean and unworn. I thought maybe she hangs them up to dry when she does laundry, but since it’s only ever one pair at a time that wouldn’t make sense since she’d either be washing them one at a time or drying them one at a time. Maybe she washes them by hand in the sink or something so that’s why they’re drying one at a time?
She is an international student from Vietnam, so I thought maybe it was a cultural thing, but I googled it and I can’t find any Vietnamese underwear traditions.
Maybe I’ll ask her about it before we both move out, but since she’s shy and we aren’t close I haven’t felt like it was a question I could ask her. Additionally the language barrier makes it so I never really get a clear answer from her when I ask questions.
Maybe this is too long of a post about underwear but I’m just very amused and curious. Basically, I’m just wondering why she possibly does this and I’m wondering if anyone else does it or knows someone who does it who can explain, because it’s odd and kind of funny to me.