Choosing a housemate - to friend or not to friend?

Guest post from Anna!

Some people say you shouldn't move in with a friend because it could ruin your relationship. Let me add my 2 cents worth about living with friends.
Obviously this is just my experience, but I have had it work both ways:

Housemate #1: When I first moved out of home I moved in with my long-time best friend, which some would say is home-making suicide. I was a bit nervous about the prospect to begin with. But we got on great because we think very similarly, are both open communicators and like to relax and spend time together in the same way. In the end it strengthened our relationship and we are still best friends even though we don't live together anymore (because a boy took her away!).

Housemate #2: This was a person I wasn't as close to to begin with, but she was still a friend. I think living together jeopardised our relationship because our expectations of living clashed and communication was weird. We didn't fight, but we rarely crossed paths. All communication on her part was by email. Not every email was passive-aggressive, but communication was by email ALONE. I'm not saying never give each other space, or never communicate by email. But if there's not an open line of face to face communication or spending time together then it causes weird tension. And there's no opportunity to strengthen the relationship. We did experience a period of horrible tension over a particular issue, which I don't think was ever really resolved properly. We tried, but seemed to be communicating at cross purposes and I don't know that either of us felt like the other person understood our own point of view. As a result I think we've lost something in the relationship.

I think potential housemates have to be up-front with each other at the beginning/before you move in together in order to establish your expectations of different aspects of house-sharing. If these expectations clash, that will probably be an indicator that it’s going to be more work if you end up living together. You can never know EVERYTHING about how it's going to work with the other person, even if you have the advantage of being able to weigh up your different personalities. But if you know the other person well enough beforehand, it is worth weighing up whether there’s anything in the relationship that annoys you. Because whatever there is will be intensified if you live together.

In the end I think it's probably less about whether a potential housemate is a friend to begin with and more about your respective "living styles". Here is a list of things to consider when choosing a flatmate. Think about what expectations you and any potential housemate have regarding:

- Cleanliness/tidiness in common areas
- How/when the common areas are used
- How you like to relax (ie do you expect to spend time together or do you always like to spend down-time in your room with the door shut?)
- Having people over (you need to put your flatmate first in this, and give them the opportunity to say "no" to you having friends over if they want a quiet night in and there is limited living space)
- Sharing/not sharing food
- How the bills are split/paid