For me, I wouldn’t want to live with a random person unless if I personally knew them or are good friends with them. However, if I ever choose to live with random people out in the real world, then I’d like to get to know them for a certain amount of time before I make my final decision. I even heard of roommate interviews, but some people may not tell the full truth, & they may leave some secrets to themselves.
Overall, I’ve seen co-ed roommates get along well, especially @ college, but they were all friends or already knew each other. My friends will also be my go-to choice before I even consider living with a stranger.
I’ve done it, both one and one and in a group situation. Whether we have similar criteria about cleanliness, the sharing of basic foodstuffs, division of labor and privacy is much more important than what kind of underwear we use (although I do admit I was miffed to discover that one of my male flatmates did posess several samples of the fabled Holey Underwear).
The craziest flatmate I had was the same gender as me. We’re also supposed to be the same species but this remains to be demonstrated to everybody’s satisfaction.
I did back in my twenties. My sister’s friend needed a roommate; I needed to move out of my sister’s apartment, so we split the differences. We had met a few times previous to move in but we didn’t really know each other that well. We became good friends once we moved in together. It never became romantic, by unspoken by-laws, and by the fact that she met someone soon after we got our place together and ended up marrying him.
It was no different than any other roommate situation I ever found myself in.
I’ve had no problem with it, beyond the usual roommate issues. The biggest difference I’ve found is significant others. There was one guy who figured me and his girlfriend had to be having sex since we lived together. Didn’t matter that she had a boyfriend (him) or that I had a girlfriend - it was impossible for men and women to live together without having sex.
I did. In college I met one of my best friends very close to the beginning of my freshmen year. All year, people just assumed we were dating since we were basically attached at the hip. During our Junior year, she moved off campus with another person (a guy, if it matters). At the end of that year, he moved out and I moved in.
What, I think, makes all the difference is that neither of us had any romantic feelings for each other at all. So, even being as close as we were, her boyfriend and my girlfriend never felt threatened. Neither of us ever felt that we were in the friend zone, always hoping that something would happen some day.
In fact, I don’t recall how it came up, but very, very early in our friendship we made it known to each other that we didn’t like each other ‘like that’. In fact, not ‘liking’ each other AND both of us knowing that the other doesn’t ‘like’ them, I think, made us much closer friends.
What I’m unclear about is that you’re OP suggests it’s about living with someone of the opposite gender, but it appears to actually be about living with someone you don’t know, as opposed to a friend.
To me, it almost reads as if you’re considering moving in with an opposite gender friend and having some qualms about it, but got side tracked when you wrote the OP.
On an unrelated note. I remember one time I mentioned to my mom that John was staying the weekend with us. She asked who John is and I said “[my roommate’s] boyfriend”. My mom let out an audible sigh of relief and said ‘so you’re really not dating her’.
Then I had to remind her that I’ve told her on multiple occasions that I’m not, while thinking to myself that even if I wasn’t dating her and/or she was dating someone else, I could still be sleeping with her (but wasn’t) which is really what my mom was concerned about.
Back when I was in college, I had many co-ed roommates, including an old communal house with a gazillion bedrooms. Some were couples, and there were no problems. Gender was never an issue.
Back in college lived in a house with three guys and two women. Gender was seldom an issue. More problems arose from some folks being a slob or not respecting others’ privacy.
Junior year, my roommates were one male and two female. Summer between junior and senior year, I had two female roommates. Wasn’t an issue. The junior year roommates I knew beforehand, but the summer I lived with the two women, I hadn’t met them before. I’m still friends with them (and photographed one of their weddings many years anon.) Those were the best and most fun roommates I’ve ever had.
I had a friend who was renting a house and he lost his roomie, so I agreed to take over her room. I don’t think the arrangement lasted a year. I discovered that when I was out, he was going into my room and taking my scented candles when he had a girlfriend over. I try not to think of what else he might have been doing in my room. After that, I just lived alone till I got married.
I’ve had multiple housemates (we don’t call them roommates in the UK, that would imply literally sharing a bedroom, which I would not be up for) of both genders- including one who started transitioning M to F shortly after moving in. I never noticed any correlation between gender and being a good housemate; the two most obnoxious were both female like me, one being an angry vegan control freak who acquired 3 untrained dogs, the other believing that anything left in an area accessible to her was fair game to take and keep in her room- right down to the sofa cushions.
The only gender related issue I can recall was the guy who decided to cut off his huge bushy beard for a job interview then attempted to wash the whole thing down the sink, blocking all the drains. Oh, that and my laundry getting mixed with someone else’s, I suppose, but that only happened a few times, and was never really a problem.
One of them I’d known for years before moving in together, one I no longer speak to. The rest were all strangers; I went to the pub with two of them on Monday, even though I moved out 2 years ago, and now live several hours away, so you really never know.
I did so when I was in graduate school; one of my two roommates was one of my best friends, who also happened to be a woman. (That said, “roommate” is slightly misleading, as we all had our own bedrooms in the apartment.)
It was never any issue whatsoever. But, I also would not willingly share an apartment with a person I don’t already know at least reasonably well – the only time I ever did so was in the dorm, my freshman year of college.
I’ve never known the word “roommate” to mean anything else. If someone uses the term roommate, I wouldn’t think they were talking about actually sharing the same bedroom unless we were talking about a dorm room or something like that.
I had a guy living in my basement for a while, who was a friend of my ex boyfriend that was homeless and needed a place to stay. He had lots of problems and I had to get rid of him but our gender difference didn’t cause an issue.
After he left I had a guy who I’d been friends with most of my life move in. That was absolutely no problem. He stayed for free and I had him clean the house and do the yard trimming in return.
Oddly enough, when his girlfriend started staying here all the time that is when I started to feel uncomfortable. Having another woman around that I didn’t know made me feel very self-conscious and anxious. I have no idea if she was judging me but in my mind I felt like she was. It wasn’t a jealousy thing with the dude whatsoever (he is like a brother to me) I just can’t deal with living with a strange woman I guess.
I would generally take “roommate” to mean sharing the same bedroom. For people sharing the same house or apartment, but not the same bedroom, I’d use “housemate”.
I’ve had multiple housemates, both male and female, on and off ever since the early 1970’s. Never had any problem with it; at least, not any problem based on gender.
yes, I don’t really like roommates though. He wanted to use my shampoo because he didn’t have a lot of hair but was unhappy that I used expensive shampoo. I suggested he buy a dollar bottle of baby shampoo and leave in the bathroom but he didn’t want to do that. he would watch tv with me in the living room while jingling the change in his pocket, I would suggest he go to his room and sleep (because he was snoring), he would deny being asleep. He moved in with his girlfriend and left his waterbed without covers for two months before he moved out making the utilities go up. after he moved he asked to rent my garage to store his boat and some other stuff. We agreed on $50.00 per month, needless to say he came and got the boat and never paid the rent.
the boat thing isn’t related to being a man but the shampoo and snoring while watching tv seems to be a male oriented annoyance.
