For students planning to live on campus next semester, don’t consider rooming with your best friend if you value that friendship dearly.
From my experience, rooming with my best friend was a recipe for a crumbling friendship. I wasn’t prepared for the time I spent with my friend, making it difficult to set boundaries.
I know how appealing the idea of living with your best friend may sound. However, this is not always a good idea. In fact, I argue that a college student would be better off rooming with someone they have never met before or have had little to no relationship with; better than to risk your friendship.
Some colleges like Duke University, Princeton University, and Harvard University don’t even allow you to room with your high school best friend
When rooming with your best friend, it may become difficult to set boundaries as it did with me. Since they are your best friend, you may feel obligated to be with your roommate at all times. It may be hard to know how to set boundaries on how much time gets allotted to your time with your friend versus the other parts of your life like other friends, hobbies, or self-care time.
Since I lived with my best friend, if I wasn’t spending time with her, it felt like I was being a bad friend. But the truth is, your best friend shouldn’t be your whole life just because you live together. You should be able to have time away from your best friend, without it tearing apart your friendship.
Maybe before you were roommates, you used to spend every Friday night together to gossip about your week or boys you liked. Both of you always looked forward to that Friday.
But suddenly it’s not just every Friday that you’re spending together… it’s every night and you are left sitting on opposite sides of the room silent, trying to figure out what to talk about.
Your roommate already knows everything that’s been going on in your life because you are always together. And because of this, they see everything you are doing from their perspective… not hearing your perspective.
Suddenly when you do talk to each other, you are fighting about how much time you are spending out of the dorm away from your roommate, or you feel like your roommate is constantly judging your decisions.
In my case, while it once was fun to discuss my week with my roommate, they just became irritated by the amount of the time I spent with my partner or other friends.
During the short time I was rooming with my best friend, she began to feel more like a roommate and less like my best friend. Our connection was lost, and replaced with arguments, fights, and an uncomfortable living space.
Yes, the idea of living with your best friend may sound awesome at surface level… but I believe that I would still be friends with my roommate today if we had never shared a dorm.
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