<p>Okay I feel like this is a top commonly asked question but I want to know what you guys think about our situation. I have been best friends for forever with..lets say Erin. She and I are like sisters and we are hanging out all the time. We are able to discuss our problems with each other without much difficultly. The thing were both scared about is going to college then suddenly hate each other if we room together. Erin may not be going to the same college as me, she will decide in march (once she finds out if she gets a scholarship at her dream college) otherwise she will be attending the same college as me, and then we will most likely room together. Our hope is that we will be able too! But I've heard so many horror stories...please tell me what you think!
Common Traits:
reserved
look similar
sarcastic
going into similar careers
like the same people
are the oldest in our families
same friends
same interests
took same classes in high schools
same religious views
share clothes
similar moral standards
same political views
same organization
differences:
about half our music interests are the same, the other half is extremelly different
we both have issues opening up to people
dress differently
Erin dates more men than I
the end. i hope that helps...</p>
<p>well what makes friends hate each other when they arrive to college is how they live and what they do. from not giving each other personal time to having a guy in the room whenever asking to being to messy, blah blah blah blah if you get where I’m going to with this.</p>
<p>I have bolded the parts that [in my opinion] have nothing to do with whether or not you will be good roommates:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>hopefully this is helpful (no, I did not make a coding error and accidentally bold too much).</p>
<p>Heard more bad stories than good stories of friends rooming together, no matter how great of friends you think each other are. In fact, the blissfully neurotic - or neurotically blissful, pick one - friends tend to be in for the bigger shock than friends rooming out of convenience or something. Whatever, go for it if you think it is your best idea. Everyone is different.</p>
<p>Two of my friends are rooming together right now. They’re both neat and clean, really nice, and one’s kinda quiet, but they’re getting along fine with no problems.</p>
<p>The one that’s causing problems is super messy and goes through their stuff (mostly looking for food to eat), eats their food and most often than not leaves crumbs and grease on their floor and laptop… and she’s not even living in their dorm building.</p>
<p>From what I understand, one of them has talked to the messy, intrusive friend about her behavior. I dunno if she still does those things, but I haven’t heard any complaints so far. Living habits are really one of the most important things to consider… you must be compatible in that respect.</p>
<p>I would be concerned that rooming together might prevent you from meeting as many other people. Right now, you might not think that this would happen, but it very well could happen. As a compromise, perhaps you could request the same dorm but not the same room. That way, you would have the experience of rooming with someone else but still have your friend nearby.</p>
<p>I’m living with friends right now and it’s great…but they were friends I made freshman year and decided to live with sophomore year.</p>
<p>I think the important thing to understand is that simply because you live together doesn’t mean that you have to be together all the time. We all have friends outside our suite and we spend time with them just as much as with each other.</p>
<p>You also need to talk honestly with each other about your habits…who’s messy? Is it going to be a problem if someone isn’t as clean as the others? What are your expectations about guests? Discuss these things now so they don’t turn into problems later.</p>
<p>Most of all, understand that if things don’t work out, you still need to be able to be civil with each other.</p>
<p>To add to soccerguy315’s post, here are a few criteria that my college uses to match up roommates:</p>
<ul>
<li>clean vs messy</li>
<li>sleeping habits</li>
<li>the role of the room: social space vs study space vs pure sleeping quarters</li>
<li>the amount of alone time each occupant expects</li>
<li>feelings towards overnight visitors and significant others</li>
</ul>
<p>Don’t. The worst thing that you can do is be comfortable and happy in college. It should be four years of constant, crippling social anxiety and terror; the intent of this is to prepare you for real life. Ask to be assigned to a terrifying stranger who never talks and forces you to wash her swords and her bloodsoaked clothes.</p>
<p>You want to have you own identity, reinvent yourself, start with a clean slate- being part of a dynamic duo brings too much baggage and expectations.
You don’t want to babysit her and vice versa. Create boundaries. She doesn’t need to know all your business.<br>
Go to the same school, live in the same dorm-just not in the same room, IMHO.
Sophomore year do as you wish.</p>
<p>I agree with most people that it is okay to live in the same dorm but not room together. It would be too easy to stay together the whole time and not branch out and make new friends. College is all about new experiences and you don’t want to be tied down to a best friend from home. It is nice to have a friend from high school that you can hang out with, but you also need to make new friends and experience new things.</p>
<p>I roomed with a good friend of mine senior year of college and never had any problems. Admittedly, we got on each others’ nerves sometimes during moments of high stress regarding school and life and whatnot, but such things are temporary. What helped us room together successfully while keeping our friendship going depended on how well we communicated. We basically laid out EVERY ground rule from the getgo. How often we’d do A versus B versus C, how we’d take care of cleaning the place, how we’d handle guests, girlfriends, study time, etc.</p>
<p>Making that plan is easy enough. We also chose to go over how to deal with disagreements in the event that we broke a given ground rule, or what we’d do if we were stressed out/angry/upset/whatever. We also agreed that it’d be a good idea to cut each other some slack. We’re all human, and sometimes we slip up. As long as you have everything well-communicated, you can still maintain a good friendship. </p>
<p>What kills your friendship with someone if you room with them is lack of communication and letting anger snowball as a result of passive/passive-aggressive/aggressive tendencies, which I’ve personally seen tear people apart in various roommate situations. Keep everything as direct and honest as you can. I’d say my friendship actually became stronger with my friend/roommate as a result of how we chose to conduct our living situations.</p>
<p>I knew of 2 families in a small rural town with 1 h.s. Both young women got accepted to a large urban university, 1,000 miles away. Both felt excited but realized it was a major move. One was outgoing, the other somewhat shy. They weren’t particularly close, just came from the same town, going to the same destination.</p>
<p>Given all the changes, they decided to room together, rather than risk an unknown roommate. They agreed that, no matter how well it worked between them, they’d choose a different roommate for sophomore year.</p>
<p>They figured if they were a tight pair as freshmen, this promise would keep them looking outward for new acquaintances during freshman year. If they were a bad pair of roommates, at least they’d both know it would only last one year and there’d be no drama about breaking apart for soph year.</p>
<p>I’m rooming with one of my friends from high school. It’s working out great! We spent a ton of time together while in high school, in fact, probably more than we do now living together, and it was fine, so we figured why not! </p>
<p>We never have visitors really as we both prefer going to other people’s rooms, we’re both a bit messy, but not overly so. Since we have an almost identical class schedule, we generally go to bed at the same time, but if one wants to go to bed before the other, it’s no biggie. Same with waking up. I have an 8:30 class MWF so my alarm goes off at 5 after on those days and I get up and move around. We have some mutual friends, but some friends that are separate as well. Neither of us really party or go out much. I’m much more outgoing than she. We are two very different people, but it works.</p>
<p>Sometimes we drive each other nuts, but that’s how it goes when you live with someone. I wouldn’t chose to do it differently if I had the choice because I’m happy with my decision.</p>
<p>Also, I feel that I can say this safely because we’ve already been through a semester and a quarter…so most of the year. And the one time I think we had any real problem was during finals week last semester. I was overstressed, overtired, and had been rubbed the wrong way by a guy I hate who my roommate is friends with, and she didn’t help the situation, so I yelled at her and basically didn’t talk to her til the day we left for home.</p>
<p>I would say no. Give yourself a year and then decide. You will know what you want in a roommate by then and will know whether or not its a good idea.</p>
<p>If you’ve been the kind of friends who have slept over at each other’s houses for weeks on end during the summer and so on, you probably know how each other lives.</p>
<p>I would go with the idea that you live in different rooms in the same dorm, or maybe together in a suite of 4 people. You don’t want to avoid your friend at all costs, but you don’t want them to be the center of your life.</p>
<p>You want to be as flexible as possible. And the biggest problem with being roommates is that your flexibility is much more limited.</p>