Living with Girl Roomies

[Bluffmaster25]

Hey guys :)

This is on an upbeat note. My friend came back from Europe and was looking for place to stay. Things were ok at my place but I had been looking (in a very lax manner) for a place myself. We ended up renting an apartment together.

The good thing is that she is my friend and we do go way back. So I am not worried about the getting along part. I just wanted to know if i should watch out for anything specific when it comes to living with a girl.

Also, I want to add that shes just a friend, not a romantic relationship. I am just glad to moving in with a chilled out friend who can cook amazingly well!

[wordsmith]

I am not a guy, but I did live in a housing situation for a year where there were five women and one guy. We all got along fairly well, and there were no flings or anything sexual going on.

[arrow]

I lived with a male roommate for 2 years (and we rented out the 3rd room to other people, mostly guys as well but one time to another girl). We had a great time. I don't think there's anything special to know about having a female roommate.

[meatwad]

I think it's one of those things that's probably easy if you grew up in a multi-gender sibling family, but might be kind of weird at first for someone like me who only had another brother.

[wordsmith]

I think it's one of those things that's probably easy if you grew up in a multi-gender sibling family, but might be kind of weird at first for someone like me who only had another brother.

Possibly. We were a half and half split in the household I grew up in. I'm not weirded out by "boy things."

The one guy in my six-person housing arangement mentioned above grew up with only a brother (and had just come off living in an army barracks, to boot). Living with five women took some major adjustment for him, and I'm pretty sure he deemed us all pretty ridiculous a good portion of the time.

[arrow]

I think it's one of those things that's probably easy if you grew up in a multi-gender sibling family, but might be kind of weird at first for someone like me who only had another brother.

Possibly. I have three brothers and no sisters, so that may have made a difference.

Yet my bf, who has one brother and no sisters, lived with a female roommate with no troubles and no (overt) sexual tension. He did say, though, that he had a hard time staying with 2 women in one place because all the female hormones in the room started to make him crazy. :p

[caddymac]

I lived with my buddy from high school and a female roommate once. What I think really helped was that the female roommate had her own bathroom. Everyone got along fine, there was nothing sexual going on at all (my friend and I knew the girl because she was engaged to another friend of ours), and Thursdays were always Friends night.

[Krishna]

I lived with 3 guys and another girl one time. It semi-sucked because 2 of my roomies has hooked up for a bit before we all moved in, and it culminated with them arguing loudly in the hall on several occasions. It finally ended when I b****ed them out at full volume one night. Since I rarely raise my voice, I think I knocked some sense into them, because the rest of the year was marked by them treating each other with stoney silence. Moral of the story: don't ever move in with someone you hooked up with in the past. Other than that, there were no issues.:p

[Bluffmaster25]

Looks like the responses tend to be towards "everything will be ok." Since I posted the message, I thought about a few things:

- Me and my (hopefully) many ladies that will be coming over to stay the night? Could that be weird for my roomie or the girl staying over? I know that she isn't going to be dating because of the focus on school. Even if she does bring some dude over, I am cool.

- Possibility of seeing each other naked. Not to say that things wouldn't get wierd if something similar happened with my guy friends, but for some reason I think it would be wierder.

- Any damage to our friendship. Like I said, we go way back to the days when we were just kids. I just want to make sure that we both give each other space. We have different schedules, some shared interests..so I figure we can hang out once in a while without being joined at the hip.

On another note, its kinda nice to see us acting like a married couple despite only being friends. Like she's totally decorating the place (with my input to man things up a bit), we're going to go shopping together on the weekends and most importantly she LIKES to cook! which is amazing for me because I have been eating out.

So I hope you guys can see why I approach this with caution as things are going great.

[wordsmith]

Looks like the responses tend to be towards "everything will be ok." Since I posted the message, I thought about a few things:

- Me and my (hopefully) many ladies that will be coming over to stay the night? Could that be weird for my roomie or the girl staying over? I know that she isn't going to be dating because of the focus on school. Even if she does bring some dude over, I am cool.

This issue is something that you have to work out individually with ANYbody you share living space with, regardless of gender. It's just one of those house rule type issues that everybody needs to have discussed and be aware of. But I don't think it matters at all if your housemates are same gender as you or different, the bottom line is that everybody's comfort levels need to be known and respected and borne in mind.


- Possibility of seeing each other naked. Not to say that things wouldn't get wierd if something similar happened with my guy friends, but for some reason I think it would be wierder.

To be honest, this is a sitcom/frat movie cliche. I lived with a guy I was completely uninvolved with for more than year, and never once did I "Ooops" let my bathrobe or pajamas slip off and, oh, damn, expose myself. I lived with brothers for 18 years, and managed to avoid flashing them, too. It's really actually pretty difficult to be "accidentally naked," if you're following basic respectful conduct of sharing space with people you're not intimately involved with.

- Any damage to our friendship. Like I said, we go way back to the days when we were just kids. I just want to make sure that we both give each other space. We have different schedules, some shared interests..so I figure we can hang out once in a while without being joined at the hip.

Always a risk whenever you room with a friend. I assume you've had roommates before?

On another note, its kinda nice to see us acting like a married couple despite only being friends. Like she's totally decorating the place (with my input to man things up a bit), we're going to go shopping together on the weekends and most importantly she LIKES to cook! which is amazing for me because I have been eating out.

Having fun companionship and sharing cooking and household duties were my favorite parts of living with a houseful of people, gender notwithstanding. It's a good time, challenges of living with others be damned. I'm really glad I did it.