Are you starting college, or heading back to school, and living with a roommate for the first time? Or maybe you graduated recently and you need a roommate to split rent with in that expensive city apartment you just moved into. It is a fact of life that all of us will likely experience having roommates at some point. Embrace it! They come with quite a few perks.
1. Cheaper rent
Usually rooming with someone saves your a few hundred dollars or more per month. Your pockets will thank you.
2. They have an extra key to your apartment
If you’ve ever been in a situation where you forgot your keys in the house, mistakenly thinking they were in you bag or purse, then you can appreciate having a roommate with an extra key. Some apartments require their tenants to pay a fee for lost or stolen keys and keycards. Who has time for that?
3. Security
Having a roommate that you trust provides a sense of comfort and protection.
4. They might have a car
If you don’t have a car and they do…winning! But please offer to put in on gas, don’t wait for them to ask.
5. Travel
You have someone to water your plants, feed your fish, take your dog out for a walk, make sure you didn’t leave the oven on, etc. while you’re away. (Once again, ask. Don’t assume someone is cool with handling those things).
6. It’s good for your social life
Once you introduce one another to your circle of friends, the rest is history. You can pregame together, head out whenever you’re both ready, and at the end of the night, talk about all the fun you had over takeout. Trust me, it’s not the same as going home and trying to sum up the entire night to someone who wasn’t there.
7. They wont let you go to happy hour alone
Because who says no to happy hour?
8. They keep you in the loop
There’s nothing worse than not getting the memo about student affairs, letters from your university or notices from your apartment’s office about things that’ll be going on in your building. Having a roommate kind of makes these things impossible to miss.
9. You’ll never be without a date
Because if they say no, they’ll never hear the end of it.
10. They can cook
If cooking isn’t your forte and you don’t know where to start, it helps to have someone around that does, at least to learn some basics. And if neither of you have culinary skills, you can learn together through trial and error.
11. They’re there when you absolutely need them
If you’re going through something and you don’t know how to deal with or how to talk about it, chances are your roommate will get it out of you. Having roommates makes it hard to retreat to a place of despair. Instead, they invite you to face and work through your issues.
12. Emotional support
Chances are if you had a crappy work day, break-up or just endured a series of unfortunate events, your roommate won’t let you wallow in self-pity. Hopefully they lend an ear for you to vent and give you practical and sensible advice.
13. Last minute outfit crisis
When you think you have absolutely nothing to wear and nothing is coming together, you can bet there’s something that can come out of raiding your roommate’s closet for outfit possibilities.
14. Friends with benefits
Not that kind of friends with benefits, the kind where your friend works a really cool job that means you get into concerts free or gets you a 40 percent employee discount on clothes.
15. They get you out of awkward situations
It can be as simple as “she’s/he’s not here.”
16. Personal alarm clock
Nobody signed up to be your second mom, but a good roommate will wake you up when they see you oversleeping and they know you have somewhere important to be.
17. You can split the cost of appliances
For example, one of you buys the microwave and the other buys pots and pans, so on and so forth.
18. They remind you cleanliness is next to godliness
Your roommates will call you out if you don’t wash your dirty dishes or you leave your things all over the apartment. Be mindful and considerate.
19. They encourage you to be yourself
Pretending to be someone you’re not and putting on a fake face is close to impossible to do in your own home for an extended period of time. Chances are your roommate doesn’t want to live with some pretentious and less-than-authentic version of yourself anyway. Respect each other and yourself enough to be honest about who you are.
So don’t fight the possibility of a roommate – embrace it!
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