How To Adjust To Living With Your Best Friend

After living with someone you didn't know during your first year at college, most people are relieved to be choosing a friend to be their roommate. However, living with your best friend can be a hit or miss. Sometimes the person that you get along great with can be the last person with whom you want to share close quarters. There are other times though when choosing to live with your best friend can work out perfectly. Here are some classic cases of best friends who, despite some major personality differences, chose to live together and how my roommate Erin and I relate to them.

1. Rachel Green and Monica Geller (“Friends”)

Despite Rachel being the “popular girl” in high school and Monica being the obsessive compulsive cleaner, these two roommates lived extremely well together. One thing that I learned from moving in with Erin this year is that organization is key, but that having a good time is also the only way that you should experience college with your best friend.

2. Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing (“Friends”)

Erin and I always joke that Joey and Chandler personify us, with me being Joey and her being Chandler. Although I consider myself a far cry from inept and a slob, the laughs that we have in our dorm room are not much different from those of the two friends. It also does not hurt that we both, her especially, have the sarcastic wit of Chandler when we carry on about the ridiculous things that people around us do.

3. Ted Mosby and Marshall Eriksen (“How I Met Your Mother”)

Ted and Marshall are perhaps the easiest roommates to relate to because in addition to living together later in life, they also roomed together during their college years. In the beginning of the series, Ted and Marshall were practically inseparable, and in flashbacks, they were shown to spend time hanging around with friends in their dorm, which Erin and I also enjoy doing. During the first semester of our first year at Fairfield, it got to the point where I considered Erin’s dorm to be my second home rather than my own dorm. Now that we're living together, hanging out has only become more fun.

4. Felix Unger and Oscar Madison (“The Odd Couple”)

Thankfully, Erin and I do not fall on the extreme opposite ends of the spectrum like Felix and Oscar do as roommates. We do enjoy a good bicker now and again, although much more lighthearted than the on-screen duo. However, for the most part Felix and Oscar serve to remind me of the qualities that you should under no circumstances possess as a roommate or, for that matter, as a decent friend.

The biggest change that I faced after moving in with Erin is that it minimized the amount of walking that I have to do at 4 o’clock in the morning in order to get back to my dorm. Hopefully, the adjustment period for living with your best friend will go just as smoothly.