2 Tips for Living With Your Best Friend

By Danielle Wirsansky on May 30, 2017

College is considered one of the most exciting times of your life — freedom, independence, the right to live the way you choose — and what could be more exciting than living with your best friend?

There is no one that you would rather live with, no one you get along better with, no one who understands you better than you do and is accepting of all of your flaws. However, there can still be some bumps in the road when living with your best friend. Read on for some tips for living with your best friend to keep the experience as positive as possible!

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Lay out boundaries

Even though this is your best friend, you still need to lay out some boundaries and create some ground rules so that your best friend remains your best friend. Who is getting the master bedroom and who is not? Is the person in the bigger room paying more? Is a walk-in closet worth the demise of your friendship? These are little things but little things that can be incredibly important to your happiness while living with your roommate.

What if you assumed all things were shared, but your best friend did not? You think the laundry detergent is communal only to get an earful from your roommate when they discover you using it. Perhaps you consider food to be off limits when you discover your best friend eating your leftovers from your favorite restaurant that you were really looking forward to eating. You never meant to offend and neither did they — but it is too little too late. Now you are both upset about a situation that could have been easily prevented.

Who is going to do what chores? You guys might be having a blast all the time but even the not fun things need to be accomplished. Just because you are best friends does not mean you have habits that do not annoy each other. Maybe you never replace the toilet paper roll directly back into the holder and this drives your friend up the wall. Maybe your best friend has a tendency not to use coasters which leaves rings on your coffee table which really upsets you. These little things might not seem like such a big deal when you are not living together and thus are less directly affected by them, but when you live together, again, these little things can drive huge wedges between the two of you.

It might seem silly, it might seem trifling, but setting up basic ground rules will help you, your best friend, and your household to stay in harmony.

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Have something separate

At first, living with your best friend can (and it should!) seem amazing. You live together, eat together, go to school and work together, sleep in the same house together. But after a while, all that togetherness can be a little overwhelming. There is such a thing as being together too much. And you do not want to get burnt out and feel like you are tired of your best friend, especially if they have not truly done something to you. You can be really close to someone without spending all of your time together and it can really change the dynamic of your relationship once you do spend so much time with them.

Sometimes when you spend too much time with someone, resentment can build up. You might find yourself avoiding them, disagreeing with everything they say no matter how trite it is, biting your tongue instead of speaking your mind around them, and avoiding eye contact. Also, hanging out with them leaves you in a bad mood.

Avoid this build up of resentment by carving out some time to be separate and away from your best friend. Have an extracurricular that you can go do completely by yourself — go to the gym, join a club or team, one afternoon a week go sit in a coffee shop and just enjoy your morning. Whatever appeals to you, you should do it without your best friend. We all need some time to recharge and be an individual rather than one-half of a team.

And it does not have to be a solitary activity — just do something without your best friend on occasion, and make sure that they do something without you on occasion too. It is not something you need to be strict or rude about so that your best friend and roommate feels vulnerable and alienated by your actions. Just be conscientious about making alone time for yourself outside the house, outside of your shared space.

This will just make your bond stronger and healthier and allow you and your best friend to truly enjoy the time you get to spend together.

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