Live With a Best Friend

Living with a best friend can come with many benefits, not only can you share out the rent payments between you, but you can also enjoy their company 24/7. However it's not always as easy as it seems; living with your best friend can do more harm than good because it puts your friendship to the test and you might start to see sides of them that you never thought existed.First be the friend you want your friend to be .

Steps

  1. Discuss moving in together. Don't just bring it up once, make sure that you thoroughly discuss your thoughts/ideas/opinions with each other. Take the time to sit down with your best friend and see whether or not you can eventually come to an agreement on whether you two can and should live together or not. You'll need to consider things such as rent payments, "house rules" and purchases that will benefit the well-being of the household as well as the house itself. Helpful things to discuss would be, for example, assignment of rooms, when you can and cannot have guests around and any cultural/religious etiquette. Make sure that you thoroughly understand each other and that you can come to an agreement before you actually take the big step of moving in together - what seems like a small issue can lead to a huge fallout later.
  2. Start planning. Once you're both sure that you want to move in with each other, start planning when you will actually move in with each other and other things such as furniture arrangements, decorations and/or room assignments. You might want to have a guest room for friends/family to stay but your best friend might want to make that room into a study so make sure that you come to agreements on the planning too. If you aren't moving in your best friend's place or vice versa , then you may also want to start Buy a Rental House.
  3. Move in together. Once everything has been sorted out and you're both happy, you can start with the actual "moving in" process. Make sure that you help each other out with your belongings and are beyond 100% sure that you want to do this.

Living Together

  1. Have some Respect. There comes a lot of things that you'll need to consider when you're living with your best friend and one of them is that you show respect. Not only respect them (which you most likely do already) but respect their personal belongings and their personal space too. Don't go through their stuff without asking them first - even if they say, "What's mine is yours", they could still get angry with you and an argument can occur. It's ideal to hang out with each other but when your best friend is clearly busy with something/someone and doesn't want to be disturbed, respect that and leave them alone until they're free. Another thing would be respecting their personal beliefs, and problems concerning that could have been avoided if you talked about before you actually moved in together. However, if, for example, they initially forget to tell you that they can't have pork in the house because of their beliefs and you get into an argument after you cook some bacon, sincerely apologise and make sure not to upset them over the same thing again.
  2. Stay clean. Practicing good hygiene isn't always something that crosses someone's mind as a potential problem when they want to live with their friend because they would expect them to do that anyway. However, you could end up surprised when you figure out that their not as hygienic as you thought that they were. This is the same for them; what you might find acceptable might come across as inconsiderate and "bad manners" to them. Leaving dirty dishes, dirty underwear, juice cartons, used disposable razors, take-away containers and other health and safety hazards laying around will give you some unwanted guests and they can potentially even do some harm to the both of you. Be considerate and think twice about putting dirty cutlery back in the drawer or not washing the bathtub after you use it. Encourage each other to clean up after your own mess and maybe even talk about a couple of unsanitary things around the house every now to give them a hint. If it doesn't bother you too much, clean up after them too every once in a while but don't let them start taking advantage of you because it can become a habit if it already isn't one. If things aren't going too well and it turns out that your friend is a slob, you'll need to be as assertive as you can with them without hurting their feelings - some people just can't help themselves.
  3. Respect each others Dietary habits and needs. You've already discussed potential dietary habits as a result of their own personal beliefs and/or health conditions so make sure that you stand by the things that you agreed on. If you're lactose intolerant friend doesn't see why there should even be a problem with you having dairy products in the house but doesn't want any kind of meat in the house, you'll need to stick by your initial promise. You can try reasoning with them to see if they can change their mind but things that involve allergies need to be taken seriously - especially nut allergies. Your friend may not appreciate you cooking/eating certain things (with or without religious/cultural/health reasons)when their around so make sure that you also respect that. Another thing would be making sure that you're not eating everything in the house. If they seem to be doing this themselves, go easy on them when you address it because they might have an eating disorder that they somewhat never told you about. You might also want to be careful about eating things that they bought. Considering the fact that you live together, you should be able to share food with each other without any immature problems but if they have made it clear that they don't want that at all, then make sure that you listen. Make sure that they know how to respect your requests too.
  4. Be aware of "Pet peeves". We all have those little things that make us tick; the one's that we sometimes tend to not actually bring up unless we see/hear someone doing it. Make sure that you address them properly with each other when the offender is at play and try not to take things out of context. If people leaving the cap off of toothpaste fuels your fire, try to be reasonable when you express the way that you feel about it, your friend may find it hard to take you too seriously otherwise, may dismiss it as a joke and then continue doing it much to your annoyance.
  5. Consideration vs tolerance. There needs to be a good balance between being considerate and being tolerant if you still want to keep your best friend during this. You may decide to tolerate your friend's late night drumming sessions but they also need to be aware that they should be considerate i.e. just because you don't say anything, doesn't mean that they should get the idea that they can get away with continuously doing it. Once again, if there's anything that bothers you and that you feel is out of line, talk to your friend appropriately. If they don't seem to agree, you may want to tolerate the smaller things but even re-consider living together if you find yourself tolerating almost everything.

Tips

  • Remember this: "respect and consideration, tolerance and acceptance" and you might just become a better housemate.

Warnings

  • It's easy to think that you know a lot about someone - especially if they're your best friend but all it can take is a week or two of living with them to see them as a completely different person. Things shouldn't ruin your friendship with your best friend but you might discover things that you probably didn't need or want to know in the first place.
  • If your best friend engages in illegal/deviant activities in the house that make you feel uncomfortable, consider moving out if they won't.
  • You will argue from time to time and it may not help if one or both or you are argumentative.

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