Rooming with a Friend or Two or More Roommates

July 18, 2018

While you may know what to expect with one roommate, rooming with a friend or more than two people is different. However, with these tips, you’ll be prepared for any room situation! The first and most important tip is to always remember that everyone comes from different backgrounds, and some people are more sensitive to situations or events than others. So, you should always strive to be respectful and understanding of everyone in your room, regardless of if you like them or not.

Should You Disclose your Autism Diagnosis?

Ultimately, disclosing your autism diagnosis is a personal decision, and is totally up to you. In a perfect world, sharing your diagnosis with friends or roommates shouldn’t affect your relationship – but unfortunately, that isn’t always the case. Some people are more open-minded and accepting while others are more judgmental and rude.

Before deciding to disclose your autism diagnosis to a roommate, take a couple of weeks or so to determine if they are open-minded or closed-minded. If they are open-minded, sharing your diagnosis shouldn’t affect your relationship and roommate dynamic. In fact, it might even improve the room dynamic because your roommate will know that some things you do or say are out of your control! If you decide to share your diagnosis, be sure to include what bugs you and what makes you spiral out of control. Share what tactics are helpful in calming you down, and include your own stimming behaviors. This way, your roommate can understand when you are having a hard time and possibly remind you to engage in some of your behaviors that calm you down.

Remember, you are not obligated to share anything with anyone. Just because someone is your friend or roommate does not mean that they automatically deserve to know everything about you. If you realize that your roommate is closed-minded and judgmental, it may be best to wait until you feel more comfortable with them.

Rooming with a Friend

In my experience, rooming with a friend was the best decision I made in college. It can bring you closer to that person and help you appreciate them more. Rooming with a friend is also beneficial because you already trust that person, and he/she won’t judge you – so your room is a safe place. The only downside to rooming with a friend is the possibility of a fight. If there is a fight, you should always value your friendship over the argument, and should ask yourself the following: is this fight worth our friendship? Usually, no fight is worth ending a friendship over, and you will be back to being friends within a day or so.

Although you think you know your friend, you don’t know their living habits. You have (most likely) never lived with him/her before, so you haven’t experienced your friend’s habits firsthand. Before you officially decide to move in together, you should ask more about your friend’s habits to see if they are compatible with yours. For instance, if your friend stays up till 4 AM every night and you go to sleep at 9 PM, living together may not be the best option. The following are some questions you can ask your friend before officially deciding to move in with him/her: what is your sleep schedule like, and are you a heavy or light sleeper? Will you be in the room most of the day or will you study and hang out elsewhere? Do you like having other friends over to hang, have dinner, or for a party? Would you describe yourself as a clean or messy person?

Truly listen to your friend’s answers and honestly ask yourself if they will be a good roommate and be compatible with your lifestyle. If you don’t think they will be, you can say “I’m sorry, I think rooming together would be destructive to our friendship because we have opposite habits that would likely conflict with one another. I still value you as a friend and don’t want our friendship to end.”

If you and your friend have compatible living habits and decide to live together, you will immediately see the benefits of rooming with him/her. Rooming with someone makes you so much closer to that person because you spend more time together! However, problems are inevitable. You should always value your friendship first. Common roommate fights are over food (who buys what, who eats what), cleaning, sleep, noise, and even simply getting annoyed at each other. The best way to solve this is actually pre-emptively solving it during your first week of school with a roommate agreement, which lays out your preferences for the room. An example of a question from the roommate agreement is talking about your food habits and what to do with the food in general. This topic allows two roommates to engage in a conversation about their preferences, ultimately allowing the roommates to agree on the rules they want to set.

Despite the roommate agreement, problems will likely arise. First, you both should try to deal with them by yourself in a quiet and secluded area; you should discuss why this problem bothers you and what you want to happen to fix it. If hours go by and you realize that you haven’t come to a solution, grab your resident advisor (RA)! Your RA will help you both come to a solution without hurting each other’s feelings or ruining your friendship. TIP: never talk poorly about your friend as a roommate to another friend. Your friend/roommate will likely find out and that will make things awkward and possibly end your friendship.

If your friend constantly attacks you in an argument, and brings up personal matters that have nothing to do with the topic at hand, you should reconsider your friendship. Ask yourself this: does my friend make me happy most of the time? If the answer is no, consider leaving that friendship. No one should attack you or make you feel bad. Most of the time living with a friend is a good, and possibly one of the best living options, but there are some cases where you realize how detrimental that friend is to your mental health. In those instances, you can either sit down and talk honestly to your friend about why you think this friendship is toxic, or slowly become distant and maybe even switch rooms.

Rooming with more than one person

Before you decide to room with several people, you should ask yourself if that living situation is right for you. There will be more noise, more shared spaces, more distractions, and more people in the room. If you are okay with these possibilities, then do it!

Consider the layout of your room: how many bathrooms are there? How many bedrooms? How much shared space is there? These are all things you must consider, because you and your roommates will be in charge of them for the whole year. Ask to set up a cleaning plan, where one or two people clean each week, and everyone alternates. For the shared space, decide how you will split it up: will everyone have separate cabinets or not? For food, consider if you want to have a communal food where everyone buys food for everyone, or if you keep your food separate with no one eating it except the person who buys the food. Planning this out beforehand will reduce the arguments and will provide a less stressful experience for everyone. A roommate agreement will likely cover this information. Again, when completing a roommate agreement, you and all of your roommates should complete it together in one sitting. During this agreement, you will learn the habits of everyone in the room, so make sure to listen and be respectful! It will most likely take 30 minutes to an hour to complete, and asks about all of your preferences for living in a communal space. If you want to prepare for this roommate agreement, go ahead and google ‘sample roommate agreement forms’ or read our article about sample roommate agreements and think about how you would answer each question.

To start off the year, try and be friendly with all of your roommates – they could turn out to be some of your closest friends! Offer to make a group chat and have weekly dinners together; doing activities as a room will help everyone bond and get more comfortable with each other. Always make sure to be inclusive and invite everyone. If you are exclusive, you will have a higher probability of getting excluded from future events, because no one wants to be around someone who is exclusive in college.

Although living in a group setting is super fun, it is very different from living at home. You can’t go wherever you want, like another person’s room, without permission. You shouldn’t take anyone’s clothes or personal items without permission. If you break something, you will most likely have to pay for it. Another thing you shouldn’t do is talk poorly or gossip about one of your roommates, especially with other roommates and in the room. Word spreads fast and the person you talk about will likely hear what you said and be upset. This can cause drama within the room and make everyone choose sides – which is awkward and unfair to ask for.

As you can see, rooming with a friend and/or a group of people are actually very similar! They both involve courtesy, kindness, patience, and effort from all sides. You should be considerate towards every roommate, and expect the same courtesy from them. Always fill out the roommate agreement beforehand to avoid as much conflict as possible. And remember, living with others is supposed to be a fun experience where you bond with people while learning more about yourself and your habits, so make sure to have fun and don’t take things too seriously!

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