Planning to Room With Your Best High School Friend?

Don’t do it.  It may sound tempting and comforting to dorm with someone who you’ve known for ages during your freshman year of college.  It serves as a kind of security blanket in a whole new world of strangers.  How could it possibly be a bad idea?

I promise you it is.

I have known my roommate since sixth grade.  We didn’t become close until the latter half of high school, but once we were friends, we were inseparable.  Realizing that we were both headed to UW-Milwaukee come fall semester, we thought there would be nothing more fun than to live together.

At the time, I could think of nothing better than living with a girl who I was already comfortable around.  I have always been shy and slightly awkward, so I feared living with someone I had never met.  Moving in with my friend seemed like the perfect solution.  I’m sure I am not the first to feel this way.

I soon learned that I had made a big mistake.

As the saying goes, “You don’t truly know someone until you live with them.”  This could not be more true.  Even if you and your friends are never apart, and you feel as if you know everything about them, trust me. You don’t.  Everyone has qualities that only come out at home, and now your dorm is your shared home.  You will notice how they refuse to use their desk lamp instead of the room lighting even though it’s 1:00 a.m. and how they always noisily call their mom while you’re trying to focus on studying.  No longer are the days when you could leave their house to go relax all alone in your room.  Your room is their room.

Further, living with an already established friend hinders you from going out and making new ones.  When you already have someone who you trust and who already knows most of your life story, you don’t feel the need to go out and find someone else to do this.  There are so many people to meet in college; you shouldn’t spend all of your time with one person.

College is all about transforming into who you will eventually be.  There is no need to tie yourself to who you were in high school.  If you and your friends can mature and evolve at the same rate, that’s great.  Often though, that’s not the story.  Put yourself out there, move in with strangers, and discover who you are about to become.