The first thing you can do, once you know you will be getting a roommate, is to avoid assuming that you will automatically be best friends. By remembering this, you will avoid getting your feelings hurt, when the two of you don’t immediately get along as well as you had anticipated. Even though you and your roommate aren’t fast friends, your living arrangement can still work out for the best. By working together around the room or apartment, you can get to know one another better. You can also do things outside the apartment together.
Something that could be extremely beneficial to roommates in keeping the peace is to make a roommate contract or agreement. This comes in handy when you and your roommate just can’t get along for one reason or another and moving out is not an option. A roommate agreement is a contract that you and your roommate work out amongst yourselves and agree to follow. This contract can range from specifying who does what chores, to specifying quiet times for study and rest. By filling out a roommate agreement, you’ll be able to live together amicably for the duration of your time together.
If you are extremely lucky and you and your roommate get along exceedingly well, you don’t need to spend every waking minute together. By spending all your free time with one another, you could endanger the closeness you share. If you get bored with each other because you spend so much time together, you still have to go home together and it can be difficult to avoid one another if you share a small apartment or a room.
By not getting your hopes up about your future roommate, you can avoid any heartache when things don’t go as you had planned. And by being realistic you can avoid any hardships when you and your roommate just can’t get along. And steps that you can take in helping to get along with your roommate will be well worth it. And after a few months, you and your roommate may move from being “just roommates” to being friends. Just because you aren’t fast friends from the day you move in together, doesn’t mean that a future friendship is impossible.
Having a roommate can be a dream come true, or they have the potential to make your life seem like a living nightmare. Either way, there are ways of coping with your roommate or maintaining the closeness you share from the beginning.
