<p>I'd rather live with someone I did know, than someone I didn't. Freshman year, my roommate (who was random) was an absolute b--ch. She was really snobby, we had nothing in common and worst of all, she snored REALLY loud, didn't care that it bothered me, and never tried to do anything about it (like go to the doctor, or get those breathing strip things, etc). It was horrendous, and I seriously wanted to smother her in her sleep a couple times. I had to wear earplugs every night the entire first semester of freshman year (sometimes I could STILL hear her!) and I ended up getting an ear infection from wearing them so much! Grr. Still hate this girl to this day. The only good thing she ever did was move out after Christmas break. </p>
<p>My other two roommates were my friend D and my cousin L. D was sort of disgusting to put it bluntly, and I was about ready to kill her when we moved out because she would NOT CLEAN HER DISHES. But, we are still pretty good friends now, since we don't live together anymore, and I never ever in a million years would room with her again, but she's still my friend. My cousin, of course, I sort of have to always like, because we're related, and yes we had some disagreements (like her drinking all my juice and never replacing it, or if she did, it was with the gross cheap watered down kind) but generally we got along alright. It was also good that I lived in an apartment with her and we had our own rooms. </p>
<p>Fortunately, I will hopefully never have this problem again (or at least, not for a while) because this year I'm living by myself!!! Really really excited to have a place just for me, and if it's dirty, it'll only be MY dirt, lol.</p>
<p>Same here, Agentdemon. Having a room to myself second half was marvelous! Movie nights with friends til wee hours, have people sleep over, could come home whatever hour and not worry about waking someone up, it was awesome.</p>
<p>You should room with people you DO NOT know because:</p>
<p>1) Living with friends ruins a freindship nine times out of ten
2) Living with people you don't know allows you to really be yourself and grow into the new and improved you. Living with people you already know forces you to stay in the shell high school sometimes creates.
3) Living with people you don't know encourages you to meet new people
4) There is nothing worse than coming home exhausted and having to act like a friend when all you want to do is veg. If you aren't freinds with your roomate, it is easier to excuse yourself.
5) You will be less likely to try new things, go out, and explore if you have a good friend living at home.</p>
<p>It's been a while since college for me, but it's not necessarily bad to room with people you know. You might not be as encouraged to be outgoing as normal, but you may well end up meeting many new friends if your roommates are more sociable than you. They'll bring their friends over, you'll tag along sometimes, and your circle expands. </p>
<p>I think rooming with a buddy has an advantage for the more socially awkward person, since they'll ideally have someone to support them as they spread their wings.</p>
<p>Going off of what libbycity said, I can be a quiet person sometimes. It's nice to have a more sociable friend along. In my point of view this is where rooming with a person I know would be good for me, to help me feel more comfortable in the transition from High School to College. Me and my friend are pretty lax people and never really argue so I don't forsee any problems, but who knows. All these posts seem very con when deciding to room with a friend or not for me, and I was just wondering what exactly makes it such a bad idea. So many people say that it is a bad idea, but wouldn't it be nice to have somebody to go to back to and just help pick you back up?</p>
<p>Yeah I'm pretty happy because my school has us fill out a massive personal questionnaire, so it's not random pairing at all. One more benefit of the LAC :-)</p>
<p>As an RA, I have had resident roommates who were strangers and those who knew each other. Neither group had more or less conflict -- I had some girls who were strangers who couldn't make it past first semester, and I had a pair of twins who were rooming together for their second year and they never had any problems.</p>
<p>It depends on how you handle it. If you hang out with the same people, you'll have a problem because you're together all the time and that gets annoying. You should also not assume that you'll be 'perfectly fine' or that you even have the same values and draw up a roommate contract just like you would with a stranger.</p>
<p>I also definitely disagree with the tenets of yeold's post. One often BECOMES friends with their roommate, but having a good friend who is a roommate does NOT make it less likely that you will go out and have fun with others, that you will discover yourself or explore, that it ruins a friendship 90% of the time (there are NO statistics to back this up) or that it forces you to stay in a shell. IT ALL DEPENDS on how you handle this situation.</p>
<p>I had a roommate over the summer who became a close friend of mine quickly. That didn't mean it suddenly went to hell -- we had a group of friends that were similar and we also worked together every day; we had a very pleasant summer and she also invited me to stay with her again this summer. We're compatible roommates. Some people who are already friends are also compatible roommates. That's like saying "Don't get married to a friend; once you live together you won't love each other anymore!" It's ridiculous. Moving in together sometimes strains a marriage and sometimes doesn't; it depends on the compatibility of the couple.</p>
<p>Same thing with roommates. Depends on your living habits. if you want to meet new friends, grow and change, YOU WILL, regardless of who your roommate is.</p>
<p>Here's my general thoughts: It's not like you have to be with your roommate 24/7. If you don't like them, just go hang out in your friend's room when they are around or something. Chances are that a stranger wouldn't be too horribly upset if you requested a change, but a best friend most likely would be. It can also be harder to get away from a best friend since they would want to constantly hang out. With a stranger you can just leave. Who knows, your roommate may end up being your new best friend.</p>
<p>You have to remember that you hear bad things more often than good things. Think about, how many people do you hear saying "Gosh, I have the best roommate, we couldn't be better matches" compared to "Ugh my roommate is so horrible and....".</p>
<p>My son roomed with a friend from high school - not a best friend for years but a friend he made the last year or two of high school. The first year they were in a triple with someone they didn't know. Then the next year it was just the two of them in a double. Then they moved off campus and the following year they shared an apartment with two other guys. After graduation, they both ended up working in the same area and got a two bedroom apartment because it was nicer than what either of them could afford on their own which is true for most young people just joining the workforce. Both of them have tons of friends and made tons of friends during college. They have some female friends they hang out with a lot who also lived together all through college and beyond and have gotten along well. I think it worked out very well. I'm sure there have been occasional disagreements and so forth but I think they are glad it worked out this way. They have their own lives, make their own space but also have a lot of friends in common.</p>
<p>Honestly, I would room with someone I DO, know. It won't ruin your relationship, you'll have someone to be there for you when you need the support. I'm pretty sure if you're a social person, you'll have no problem making lots of friends with others. I do not recommend room with a random person. One of my friends[who goes to NYU] had a roomate who stole his money and food on a regular basis, and my other friend[ who goes to Cornell] had a dirty roommate, she was always leaving her clothes on the floor, was always playing video games or watching anime, or bringing her bf over into the dorm who was worse than her.</p>
<p>Although, you're random roommate could turn out to be an awesome person and one of your best friends for the rest of your life. You decide</p>
<p>Here's another take-- I did not room with someone I knew first semester of college. We got along really well; she did her thing, I did mine. We were never really friends but we lived pretty well together. Second semester, I had a friend of mine move in with me. DISASTROUS. I spent the first two months of the semester freaking out. We had half of our classes together, were in all the same clubs, ate together... I was literally going crazy. And at some point, she and another started excluding me all the time. It got better towards the end of the semester (the fact they were excluding me all the time got better, at least, and she and me did more things together) but that probably drove me to be so very adamant on transferring, moreso than I was earlier that year. My roommate, post-spring break, started to get on better but it took 4 months for that to happen.</p>
<p>So I think that it CAN work, but you have to a) not be in the same things all the time (at one point, my roommate and I had shared 3 out of 4 of our classes) and/or b) be really good friends. Like we were friends, but we weren't like, GOOD friends at that point when we moved in together. It was at that point where you're good enough friends, so you can't be completely straight up like you would a mostly stranger with nothing to lose but you don't know them well enough to be really honest with them without fear that they'll end up hating you.</p>
<p>It only worked out because I ended up keeping my mouth shut and letting myself work it on out on my own... I'm pretty sure if I said something, things would have turned out really ugly. I won't say this will always be the case, but that's what ended up happening to me. It wasn't the best solution, I'm sure, but it ended up working out for the best.</p>
<p>Well, a friend and I have talked about this, and both seem interested in pursuing similar careers so we would be spending a lot of time together probably with similar classes. This just seems to benif fit us though to have somebody to work with, get help when you need it, and help keep you on track for things that need to be done. Sure, everybody needs their space and all, but why not just go to a library or something where it is quiet. Nothing is keeping us together all the time, we'd each do our own different things some days. From what some of you are saying, having a contract would be a good idea though to just lay down some ground rules? Has this really worked for anybody rooming with their friends?</p>
<p>spasteak, that just sounds like a horrible idea. It is a disaster waiting to happen. You'll pretty much spend every moment of every day together and you will get tired of each other pretty quickly. You don't have to room with someone in order to still accomplish all those things. Although you don't fight now, that doesn't mean that you won't in the future. If you get in a fight it will really suck since you live together and have the majority of your classes together. If you're fighting, your life will be miserable. Laying down ground rules can be hard to do since you two already know each other. Chances are that those rules won't be followed anyways. Besides, I wouldn't want to sign a contract. An agreement is fine, but seriously, a contract? That would run me off really quick!</p>
<p>"Sure, everybody needs their space and all, but why not just go to a library or something where it is quiet. Nothing is keeping us together all the time, we'd each do our own different things some days."</p>
<p>OKGirl, did you even read this part of spasteak's post at all or did you skim through it extremely fast? I'm sure at most schools, even if its single sex dorms you don't have to necessarily stay every night with your friend....chances are you'll make enough friends that at least one of them would invite you in their dorm to spend the night. </p>
<p>"An agreement is fine, but seriously, a contract? That would run me off really quick!"</p>
OKGirl, did you even read this part of spasteak's post at all or did you skim through it extremely fast? I'm sure at most schools, even if its single sex dorms you don't have to necessarily stay every night with your friend....chances are you'll make enough friends that at least one of them would invite you in their dorm to spend the night.
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To me that means "We won't have to do every single thing together all the time", not staying the night somewhere else. If they have the majority of their classes together, that is enough time spent together. It would suck to be mad at them because they will have to spend so much time together. Is spasteak going to ditch those classes too? Living together and having most classes together and the same major (that means that they will probably end up having to share more classes in the future). It would suck if they got really mad at each other and stopped talking since they will also have to spend a ton of time together in the future. So even if you spent the night in a different room, you'd still have to be around each other a lot.
To me, a contract is a legal agreement. It says "If you do this then ___ happens as a consequence". What would the consequences be? An agreement isn't so set in stone and harsh. It just seems like an agreement would be enough and a contract would be overkill. Shouldn't a friend's word be enough? Besides, a contract isn't going to make things less likely to happen.</p>
<p>I would say that it's fine to share some classes with a roommate. However, if there are different sections of the same class it would be best to be in the different sections. That way you have someone who can help you with the material and someone to discuss the class with, but it's not like you'll have to spend all day with your roommate.</p>
<p>Well, I'm out of the ordinary I guess. I roomed with my best friend since 6th grade my freshman year and I could not have asked for a better roommate. Yes, I didn't always agree with her but we handled conflict maturely. We both had long distance relationships and helped each other through that. (And yes we made it through the year with our LDRs intact). And no, we didn't just stick to each other but we met a TON of new people together and we still had each other for comfort and assurance. </p>
<p>And, on top of this, we socialized together all year long, going to parties and club meetings and even taking the same classes together.</p>
<p>So it seems like if you know exactly what you're getting yourself into then why not try it. My roommate/best friend and I surpassed all odds by rooming together, surviving long distance relationships, meeting a ton of new people who are now good friends, and taking a lot of classes together. </p>
<p>As long as being with your friend/roommate doesn't change the way you act, just make sure you don't act closed off together because it makes it uninviting for others who want to talk to you. </p>
<p>I always approach it as: think about the most annoying habits of your friends and then wonder how you react if you had to deal with those habits every day, if not several times a day. How would you feel? Could you deal with it? If not, maybe you should separate ways as roommates.</p>
<p>One of my closest friends is wonderful to me but she can be a tad abrasive on her opinions. We had a trivial yet heated argument about "Fight Club," for example.</p>
<p>Also, I knew three guys who were best friends and decided to be roommates in their first year of college. They are all really different and I expected them to get annoyed at each other but it got to the point when all of them stopped speaking and one finally moved out to his parents' place. After things started to fall back to normalcy, they all started speaking again and got along well.</p>
<p>Opposites attract but that doesn't mean they are always a good combination.</p>