Whether you’re a newcomer to the dorms or you’ve renewed your contract to stay in your apartment another year, the prospect of new roommates can still be scary. There’s a social pressure portrayed by all sorts of films and blogs that your roommates will become your BFFs. But if you’re just not clicking with your new roomie, sometimes it can feel like you must be doing something wrong. Sharing a living space with someone you’re not entirely jazzed about can be a really uncomfortable experience, but if you’re waiting for someone new to fill that empty room in your place with, I’m here to tell you: don’t go in with the mindset that you simply must become friends.
I was really fortunate during the 2021-2022 school year to share my first apartment with one of my best friends from high school and eventually become friends with another roommate that joined us in our 4-bedroom space. The fourth roommate, however, I never seemed to gel with and initially that stressed me out immensely. The thought of living with someone I couldn’t be friends with was so stressful to me at first that sometimes I was nervous about being in shared spaces. Looking back, I can’t help but laugh because my life would have been so much simpler if I just accepted that I don’t need to be friends with everyone to live happily.
All of my roommates from that year have moved out, and I now have three new ones. Since I didn’t know any of them previously, I grew comfortable with the idea that I don’t need to force a friendship with any of them; if any developed, great. If not, I knew it wouldn’t be the end of the world. And now, although none of us are extremely close, we all function well living together, running the dishwasher and sharing dishes and bringing up concerns with little worry of hurting one another’s feelings. It’s made for a harmonious and calm environment to live in.
If you’re moving in with new roommates sometime soon, I highly recommend refraining from the worry that you should become lifelong friends with everyone. Living and working around different personalities and living styles can be a major change; there’s no need to force a friendship where there isn’t one just because you all are in close quarters.