5 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Live With Your Best Friend

By Kailey Walters

 When it comes to choosing a roommate, whether you live on or off-campus, the first person you probably think of is your best friend. After all, how cool would that be? You start imagining all the great things you could do together -- watch movies, stay up late talking every night, borrow each other’s clothes… the list goes on and on. At the same time, however, you’ve probably also heard it said before: you shouldn’t live with your best friend. That may seem like a weird piece of advice, but let’s be honest, there are also some good reasons as to why you should avoid living with your best pal and instead room with someone else.

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1. It won’t feel like a sleepover every night.

Sleepovers with your best friend are a lot of fun. You can’t help but look forward to spending time with them because, first of all, they’re your best friend, and second of all, sleepovers are a special occasion that only happen once in a while. When you live with your best friend every single day, though, that special feeling might start to go away after a while. Being in such close proximity with your best friend all the time could even lead to a host of other problems, which brings us to the next point …

2. You might get into arguments.

Let’s face it -- you’ve probably had at least a few arguments with your best friend at some point. If you haven’t yet, rooming with them might be an unfortunate breaking point for the two of you. This isn’t to say that your friendship will be forever ruined, but it is important to be aware of the potential disagreements you two could have -- which could involve anything and everything. You may know each other very well and spend a lot of time with one another, but when it comes to sharing a place together and being in the same space all the time, that’s a different story. You also can’t predict what kinds of conflicts may arise between the two of you, so it’s important that you both think about the pros and cons of living with each other if you want to avoid getting into arguments.

3. You won’t be able to vent to your best friend about your roommate.

One of the wonderful things about not living with your best friend is that you can share horror stories about your roommate with them at any time. All the things that your roommate might be doing to annoy or upset you -- from leaving dirty dishes in the sink to not cleaning their hair out of the shower drain to bringing friends over at midnight -- you would normally be able to vent to your best friend about. But if your best friend happens to be your roommate already, that makes it a little difficult to vent to them. Sure, you may have other close friends you can share your woes with, but it probably won’t be the same as sharing your feelings with your best friend. As a result, you might want to think twice before sealing the deal to live with your best friend.

4. It may be difficult to respect each other’s space.

When you live with another person, especially someone you’re very comfortable with, there is bound to be some spillover into each other’s space -- whether that be on each other’s sides of the room, the bathroom, the kitchen, or what have you. This may be fine for the short term, but after living with your best friend for a year, keeping the peace may become a bit more difficult. Maybe you won’t want your best friend constantly borrowing your clothes or your makeup without asking you, or inviting friends to crash at your apartment every other night, or anything else along those lines. In addition, you and your best friend might have different styles of decorating -- which is fine, of course, but it’s something else to consider when you have to share a place with them. Whatever the case, be prepared to handle being too close for comfort.

5. You may need to spend time apart from each other.

After spending so much time in close quarters, you and your best friend simply may need to take a break from each other. This is not necessarily a bad thing -- after all, everyone needs their space sometimes -- but if you more and more frequently decide you need a breather from being around your best friend, that might be a red flag. As a result, you should figure out how to best handle situations with your best friend when things get too heated.

At the end of the day, whether or not you want to live with your best friend is up to the two of you. Just make sure you carefully think through the pros and cons, and you should be able to maintain a strong, healthy relationship with your best friend -- and with whoever you choose to be your roommate, too.