Sharing your space with a stranger can be quite difficult, especially when you have never ever shared your room with anyone else.However, with few adjustments you will realize that sharing your room is not a bad deal at all. In fact you may soon end up being best friend with your roommate and will start making memories that you people will cherish all your life. Although there are many ways in which you can keep your roommate happy, the best 5 ways to ensure that you are at peace with your room mate are as follows.

Photo by Robert Judge, CC BY 2.0

1. Respect Your Roommates Tradition And Belief System

Always remember that people come from different backgrounds and belief systems. Hence, it may happen that your room mate has different tastes, mindset, eating habits and religious beliefs. This doesn’t mean that you people won’t get along well. You just need to respect their point of views and opinions. Just like any other relationship respect is quite important in friendship as well. You need to respect your roommates thought process and ideas even if you do not relate with it. You can express your opinions too but in a subtle way. ‘Give respect and take respect’- It’s as simple as that.

2. Decide About Handling The Expenses As Early As Possible

Money can be cause of fight and tension quite easily so it is important that you and your roommate decide on how to share expenses on the very first day itself. List out all the monthly expenditures like groceries, electricity bills, as well as all the necessary stuff that you need to buy for your place like toaster and utensils. Once you have completed the list divide the responsibilities and keep a track if the tasks are completed with the help of checklist.

3. Maintain Cleanliness

Remember that you are no more in your home sweet home and your mom isn’t there to clean up all the mess that you have created in your room. Most of the roommate’s quarrels occur because of hygiene and cleanliness issues. Hence, make sure that you do up your laundry yourself and do not create a mess in the room. Ensure that you try your best to make your apartment a pleasant space to stay in.

4. Spend Time Together/ Celebrate Together

Take efforts to spend time with your room mate. Go together for shopping, movies, play some games like scrabble and try to understand about each other. This way you will develop a bond of friendship and understand more about each other. Home chores like cooking and cleaning can also be a lot of fun when done together along with your room mate. This way you will complete your daily tasks and also get a chance to explore more about your room mate. Also ensure that you celebrate special occasions like your roommates birthday together and make them feel special.

5. Try To Help Out As Much As You Can

It may so happen that your roommate is not keeping well physically or is stressed out about some issue. Try to help them out in your way but at the same time ensure that you do not intrude into their space. You can help them out in simple ways by doing their part of chores or cooking a meal for them. This way your help will be appreciated and your roommate would not feel any kind of interference.

Being a roommate may seem a tough task in the beginning but with few simple tips, things will start working out for you. In fact eventually you will realize that having a roommate is one of the best things in life.