Shared a house with a single dad back in the eighties. We’re still besties today as grandparents!!
I did it for three years as an undergrad.
A friend of mine lived in a three-person apartment when I was in grad school. They called it their “Three’s Company” apartment, for obvious reasons. One of the women, though, was a Roman Catholic nun.
Yes, really.
Only once, for a couple of months right before I got married.
I’d been living in a house shared with another woman. She was giving up the place (the landlord lived in a basement apartment in the house) and I wasn’t getting married until July, but this was May and i needed something short term.
I don’t honestly recall how I got in touch with the people in the house - friend-of-a-friend, or perhaps an ad in the local paper. I certainly didn’t know any of the others before I moved in. There were two other women living there, and one guy. I was on the ground floor (my own bedroom) as was one of the women; the other was in the upstairs portion. The guy lived at the end of the ground floor. I don’t honestly recall whether he had his own bathroom, but none of us ran around in a state of undress. They all seemed nice but it was definitely a group of not-close people sharing, as opposed to “we’re buddies, let’s rent a place together”.
I don’t even recall whether I did any cooking. Nobody else did much.
I’d definitely have an issue sharing a hotel room with a guy. I actually did that once (well, technically twice); we had a college student staying with us and he and I were going to Florida for a week to help my in-laws out. We had to stay the night en route each way. I wasn’t ponying up for 2 rooms, so I booked rooms with 2 beds, and it was a non-problem; we just changed clothing in the bathroom. I don’t think I’d want to do this with a stranger or work colleague (as a friend was once asked to do; she pushed back and they backed off).
I did, twice, while I was in college:
- One summer, I shared a sublet house with another man, and two women
- A year later, when I was in grad school, I shared a house with a man and a woman (one of the two women I’d shared the summer sublet with)
But, in both of those cases, all of us were already friends before we embarked on the roommate arrangement. The woman with whom I shared two different houses was one of my best friends in college, and we’ve remained close friends to this day.
Thinking of all of the roommates I had, before I got married (both my college roommates, and my roommates from my post-college years):
- In every case where I already knew them before rooming together, the roommate relationship went pretty smoothly, and we remained friends after the roommate arrangement ended.
- In every case where I did not previously know the roommate, it wound up being somewhere between tolerable and horrible; I’m no longer in touch with any of those roommates, and had zero desire to be.
(I’ll also note, in reading Mama Zappa’s post, that I’ve shared a hotel room – and even a bed – with female friends a few times, usually in the context of being at a gaming convention. My wife doesn’t have an issue with it, and there’s never been even a hint of shenanigans. But, I can absolutely understand that it’d be a sitaution which would make many people uncomfortable.)
I’ve shared flats with strangers of the opposite sex in college. I’ve shared a bedroom with friends of the opposite sex. I’ve never platonically shared a bedroom with a member of the opposite sex I did not already know.
I thin mixed-gender bedrooms are common in our military now, they would be strangers at the start.
In college I lived in a co-ed suite one semester and in grad school I roomed with a couple of guys. That was in the 1970s/early 1980s.
Does anyone actually still think this is an issue? I mean, I’m sure there are individuals who are sufficiently religious, conservative, prudish, and/or shy, and they wouldn’t do it, which is fine; to each his own. But surely it’s not an issue for the majority of people?
I misspoke (mistyped?) above. I forgot about the summer I rented a house with my college roommate (another woman) her boyfriend, and my boyfriend’s college roommate. My boyfriend was in another city that summer.
I actually shared a large bedroom with my boyfriend’s roommate. We hung a curtain down the middle, and had separate beds on opposite sides of the curtain. We respected each other’s space, and it was completely fine. My college roommate and her boyfriend shared a bed in the other bedroom.
That was a fun summer.
Well, a friend told me that her mother’s friends were upset to learn that my friend was sharing a house with guys she wasn’t related to. “How can you let her do that?!” they asked the mother. “My daughter is 32, and I don’t really ‘let’ her do anything”, the mom replied.
That being said, when my then 23 year old son told me he planned to share an apartment with a women, I was MUCH more concerned that he didn’t know her very well than I was about her gender. And… she turned out to be an extremely troublesome roommate, for reasons having nothing to do with being a woman. She smoked pot in the living room. (the apartment had a no-smoking rule, and my son couldn’t keep the smoke out of his bedroom.) The she invited one of her other friends who lost his apartment to crash in their living room, without discussing it with my son. The “houseguest” had his girlfriend over, and they had sex on the living room couch, and left personal items (like condoms) lying around on the couch. Oh – and then the actual roommate lost her job, and she and her houseguest decided that they (including my son) should all be good communists, and should share the rent proportional to their income, which is to say, they wanted him to pay 90% of the bill.
Yeah, roommates can be tricky, but I don’t think the gender of the roommate is a big deal.
It was very common when I traveled on the cheap to meet up with another solo op-sex traveler, and share rooms and even beds as long as we were both going in the same direction. Even back in the 60s. There is no reason such an arrangement could not be open-ended.
We currently have a Twitter page (for my college) in which people can advertise their apartment or house leases (only during the end of each semester).
Even though certain students may have some specific roommate requests, you’ll still find some people at my college who don’t mind living with random roommates at all.
Furthermore, it also depends on the following factors:
- They don’t want to (or are unable to) live with their parents or relatives.
- They would rather live with friends when compared to strangers.
- They feel more comfortable living alone.
- They live closer to their job (convenience > living arrangements).
- They may feel too attached to their current living arrangements.
- Most people would rather be safe than sorry, just in case if anything bad were to happen if they decide to live with a random roommate.
Which is why the most important part of living with a random roommate is to conduct an in person interview in order to find out more about them.
TLDR:
- Living with random roommates = High Risk, High Reward
- Living with friends = Low Risk, High Reward
I shared a two-bedroom, one-bath apartment with a woman for several years in my 20s. We didn’t have a lot of money and it was cheaper. And we knew each other already. A non-stranger* was more important to me at the time than their sex or gender.
She was in a long-distance relationship with her now-husband for the duration. I dated sporadically. We were both working so much, there wasn’t really any time for drama. We still keep in touch and attended each other’s wedding.
*Although when she got a job elsewhere and moved out, I did get another roommate I didn’t know very well for like 6 months before I got a job elsewhere and moved out.
I disagree. Just because you’re friends doesn’t mean you’ll be compatible as roommates, and the consequences could include not just hating your roommate, but losing your friend.
I’m not the most easygoing person. I knew my college friends would drive me crazy and chose not to live with them, instead taking on a series of randos, male and female, with mixed results. I had some great roommates (of both sexes) and some terrible ones; the great ones became new friends, and I was glad to never have to see the terrible ones again when the lease was up. Meanwhile my friends lived together and fought constantly over whose turn it was to do the dishes or buy toilet paper. Fortunately they were mostly able to let those things go and remain friends; I’m not sure I would have. I’ve known others whose friendships ended as a result of living together.
I kinda agree that sometimes living with friends can blow up. One thing to keep in mind is that most housemate situations are among younger people and younger people themselves are often changing rapidly. I had one friend as a roommate, he starting getting more bitter towards life as he realized his job prospects were limited, he’d dropped out of school ‘for a semester’ and of course never went back. He got mugged one night and turned into the most virulent racist I’ve ever seen. He said things that would get him expelled from the KKK. We couldn’t even watch baseball without his racial comments about the players.
For me, it was will they pay their rent since I owned the house. I wanted to see a pay stub and proof they had a job.
When roaming the world, I often met up with women going the same direcction, and it was never any problem traveling together for days or weeks, often sharing a room and sometimes a bed, without any sexual overtones. Even into my 70’s. Among budget single travelers, that option is understood.
So if I needed to avail myself of such an arrangement shore-based and open ended, I wouldn’t have any problem with it. The problem would kitchen engineering, a woman would dull my knives and warp my cutting board.
I took an extra year as an undergrad, so my 3 male apartment mates graduated and I needed replacements. One of them said he knew a girl from campus that was looking. I had no objection. Turns out it was 3 girls, the one my friend mentioned and 2 of her suite mates that were also looking to go off-campus. They came over and we bullshitted for a while. They seemed likeable and I figured why waste time interviewing dozens when I needed a lease signed by 3 more people, so I agreed to them.
Well, it was a so-so decision. When fall rolled around and I returned to my apartment I was met by a huge Newfie dog who growled the second I walked into the place. I also noticed the living room carpet was gone. I was told the dog crapped/pissed on it and they tossed it. I was going to my room and passed thru the kitchen and saw the place looked like a crackhouse. Flour on the kitchen prep area complete with ants. I blew a gasket, sat them down and pretty much said if things didn’t immediately change that I was going to the landlord who was a nasty fuck who would have found a way to evict them (and probably me in the process). Amazingly they complied and even paid the landlord for the ruined carpet.
When one of the girls’ parents came for a visit they lost they their mind when they saw that a guy lived there. Immediately the Dad put a lock on her bedroom door. Even she thought he was being overprotective. I had made a promise to myself to never look at any of them as potential date/relationship material (and I assume it was mutual) because that could get uncomfortable really quickly.
Oh did I mention the fire that broke out when the dog knocked over a lit candle in one of their rooms? That was pleasant; I managed to talk the landlord into NOT throwing us out because we (meaning she) would pay for the damages and repaint the apartment (with her boyfriend).
In the end I moved out during the winter to the apartment opposite ours with, you guessed it, three other young ladies who I was already friends with. Funny enough, the three girls I left replaced me with another guy roommate.
So I suggest you really get to know your potential roommates, regardless of gender. You’ll probably have a pretty good idea of what’s in store with people you already know. The crap shoot is probably not worth it.
Couldn’t get that lucky