Sleepovers are super fun, right? You have until the wee hours to talk nonsense, eat unhealthy, and laugh until you are physically in pain. And the best part is that you get to do it with your best friends, your soul mates in this lifetime.
What if you can have sleepovers every day? The idea of moving in with your friends seem exciting. Renting a DMCI condo with a friend means you have someone to split fees with, and also someone you can listen to your rants to when things don’t go well at work. But, there are also challenges, and not all friends turned housemates become successful at living together.
There are things about your friends, good and bad, that you will only learn once you start living with them. Renting a house with friends is an adventure, with a series of ups and downs and unfortunate events, and there are surely learnings along the way that you should cherish.
Tidiness
Regardless if you eat lunches together or order takeout during sleepovers, and regardless whether you share hotel rooms when traveling, there’s no way you will get a full grasp of your friend’s tidiness or untidiness. Perhaps, you know that she has the habit of just throwing everything in her bag, or that she is obsessed with organizers. Perhaps, you’ve heard about how much she hates about doing household chores.
But living with her will expose her routines, whether she can or cannot stand dirty dishes on the sink overnight, whether she makes her bed or not in the morning, and how often she changes towels and bed linens.
Financial responsibility
One’s sense of financial responsibility, great or non-existent, will be in full view once you’ve started condo renting with a friend. One of the main reasons for renting with a roommate or a housemate is to have someone to split expenses with — from rent and dues to utilities and food. Bills are not going to pay themselves, and every now and then, you’ll have to talk about money, which is not everyone’s favorite.
Is she the type who is always late on rent, or does she pay in advance? How does she feel about footing the grocery bill every once in a while? Does she need to be reminded all the time about bills to pay? Be careful about money matters because it is major cause of misunderstanding among roommates. You may be the greatest of friends, but if this component of living together is not clearly laid out before doing so, there’s going to be some trouble.
Pet peeves
Renting a house with friends means getting to know about each other’s pet peeves, and then being charmed by them. A friend who cannot stand it when a glass of water would leave rings on the table, a friend who always lectures about toilet seats, a friend who doesn’t like seeing a shoe parted from its pair, or a friend who likes to line up all remote controls and devices in perfect sequence — these are just examples of pet peeves and peculiarities that you are likely to discover about your friend turned roommate. These may annoy you at first, but if you just let her be and ride with it, you’ll find that you actually find these things quite cute and charming.
Compromise
Ah, the art of compromise. This is something you will have to navigate as friends and as housemates. There will be times when you have to make a decision that the other does not agree with, and compromising is the only way to go about it.
If one roommate wants the wall gray and the other wants beige, if one likes to bring home a dog and the other is not fond of it, if one likes inviting friends over late at night while the other would like to go to bed early, you must work on a compromise. You will learn just how your friend will handle a compromise, or whether she will or will not allow it in the first place.
The important thing is to talk about it, and don’t allow disagreements on certain things ruin your friendship. Don’t let these things burden your heart to a point when you can no longer take it.
Relationships
Moving in with anybody, a friend or a lover, are meant to test the strength of relationships. And sometimes, even the strongest of them all fails.
Renting with a friend will at some point put your friendship to test, and even the pettiest of issues can sometimes hurt. Sometimes, your friend would not be there when you go home heart broken. Sometimes, she is unavailable to listen. Sometimes, you will get tired of her constant rants. And sometimes, you’ll hate her guts.
Living with a friend will expose how much you or your friend value your relationship, and how far both of you are willing to go for it.
Fun, fun, fun
As friends, you probably already know each other’s idea of fun, but condo renting together would show just how fun your friend really is. A regular baking session can turn wild, and a simple soundtripping can turn into a karaoke night.
Living in the city can be a bore sometimes, and you can only go to the mall several times in a week, but your roommate’s creativity can turn things around, and turn ordinary moments into memorable ones.
Thoughtful and sweet
For some reason, the best tasting snacks are those that your roommate unexpectedly brings home to your place. It’s that Chinese food or pizza that you don’t necessarily crave, until you see your roommate walk into the house with it. Then, you’ll realize how thoughtful your friend is, without even trying. When you fall asleep on the couch watching Netflix and she wraps you in a blanket, or when you forgot your keys and she would rush home in the middle of her work shift just to let you in are the moments when your friend’s thoughtfulness and sweetness will surprise you.
Most people would not encourage renting a house with friends because there are rumors going around that those who move in as best friends are destined to move out as each other’s worst enemies. But other people’s realities need not be your own. Renting with a friend will make you discover things you never knew about each other, and if you work really hard on your friendship, you just might end up loving every single bit.
