5 Reasons Why Friends Make Horrible Roommates

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• December 19, 2008
• By Vintage Brazen
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by Broke Grad

 

One of the questions that almost every college student encounters at least once is “Should I live with a complete stranger or with my best friend?” The question seems simple enough, and the answer seems like it should be obvious.

When it comes to picking roommates, we naturally assume that our best friends would also make the best roommates. However, this isn’t always true. In fact, many times a good friend can turn out to be a horrible roommate, and here’s why:

1. Your expectations are too high.

Your friends are awesome, and when they become your roommates, you expect them to live up to that level of awesomeness all of the time. The problem is that nobody can be that awesome all of the time. (Heads would explode.) It’s simply not possible to sustain it.

2. You discover their quirks and weaknesses.

After a few days, weeks or months, you’ll start to discover some of your friends’ quirks and weaknesses. Whether it’s creating a hazard zone in the kitchen, blasting music at 2:00 a.m., snoring so loud you can’t fall asleep or not paying rent on time, the outcome is always the same. You start to get annoyed.

3. Friends are not friends forever.

Conflict is inevitable when multiple people share a space. It’s one of the things we never grow out of. Eventually, you or one of your friends/roommates will get so annoyed at something they will hit the breaking point. This is when things can get ugly, and many times, this is where friendships end.

4. It gets boring.

If you’re lucky enough to make it through the conflicts that arise without destroying the friendship, then you face another challenge: boredom. It can get boring when you see and hang out with the same people everyday, so you start to branch out by hanging out with new friends, creating another source of potential conflict.

5. It’s like getting married (without the sex).

Living together is a big commitment. It’s kind of like getting married, minus the sex (or exactly like it if you’re in a sexless marriage). With approximately 40-50 percent of marriages ending in divorce these days, it makes me wonder if the stats would be similar for friends who become roommates.

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