People tend to fall in love with those close to them.
It is perfectly okay to date a workmate, acquaintance, or even your fellow student.
Relationships can fail sometimes.
Issues always pop up, whether minor or major, unforgivable or worth ignoring.
So, Is It a Bad Idea to Date Your Roommate?
The answer to that question is “yes.” Hold your horse if you are thinking of sparking a dating relationship with your roommate. First off, take some good time and think deeply about what you are about to get yourself into. It’s a critical decision with grave consequences if things fail to go to plan.
Sharing the cost of bills with your roommate is easy, but dating your own roommate may strain your finances.
What if you feel the need to take a break from your dating relationship? Will you leave your apartment?
Seven Reasons Why You Should Never Date Your Roommate
Here is why you should never date your roommate:
1. Movies and Leisure Will Change
Roommates don’t relate the same way dating couples do.
You will notice dramatic changes in interaction immediately you flip a roommate into a romantic partner.
For example, casual roommates would simply sit on separate chairs or a distance apart in front of the TV to watch a few episodes on Netflix.
A dating couple, on another hand, would cling to each other, cuddling the entire time. You need to ask yourself if you are ready for this sudden shift.
Of course, sexual intercourse has to occur – there’s no way you are going to live with a romantic partner in close quarters and rule out the prospects of sex.
No matter what you tell yourself, getting in a sexual relationship with another person changes the dynamics of the home.
Even worse, the fact that your roommate turned girlfriend/boyfriend is someone you’ll see daily may shift the dynamics to a precarious territory.
2. Personal Space Gets Smaller
It is pretty standard for a dating couple that lives in the same space to start sharing chores and responsibilities like laundry and cooking.
This is genuinely cute, and can easily lead you into thinking you actually love each other. Until you discover you don’t.
Cooking breakfast and dining together can be fun but one of you will have to wash utensils in the end.
Those shirts and blouses won’t fold themselves after laundry.
All those little annoyances you will have in a relationship are guaranteed to amplify twofold because you are beginning to take everything personally.
All of a sudden, you start to feel caged with no chance to escape your “lover” because you are – guess what? – roommates!
3. Dating A Roommate Means You Become More Transparent
The typical roommate doesn’t need to know the complex side of your financial life whether it is bad or good.
As roommates, provided the bills are paid as earlier agreed, no one gives a damn about your financial state.
Things can get a little awkward when you turn the roommate into a romantic partner – such things as your salary details and budgeting responsibilities become a shared interest.
Most people don’t think through such things before getting into a relationship, so there is a good chance you will realize too late you aren’t willing to share some details about your life.
4. The jealousy bug bites faster
Like any other dating relationship, more so early on, chances are very slim that your dating relationship is going to remain exclusive.
Such relationships are often experimental to one person, but mean everything to the other person – pray you aren’t the latter.
Those prolonged WhatsApp chat sessions your roommate used to have will start to come across as suspicions.
How will you even feel if your newfound romantic partner decides to bring in another date or their ex to your “place?”
Even if you are pals with benefits who just happens to be living together, it might be a bit hard to host your roommate’s partner or see your roommate take out someone and return late at night.
Worse yet, what if you are the only one serious with the relationship??
5. You May end up with a Broken Heart and more
Dating relationships almost always end on bad terms.
The worst part is when you are so fed up with each other that you can’t stand the presence of each other on the same couch.
At that juncture, the best thing you could do is leave the apartment.
But, how will you even break your lease? You are both in it, remember.
Does it mean one individual should move out and let another tenant come in as a sublease?
What if the landlord declines this arrangement?
Some relationships can spiral to hell in a matter of hours.
Things can get really bad that one of you has to walk out immediately, leaving the other person with rent arrears and all unpaid bills.
The other scenario, perhaps the worst, is you are forced to live with your roommate turned lover turned ex-partner in the same space until you run down the rental lease agreement spanning several months.
6. Is It a Situation-Ship or A Relationship?
Just because you are used to each other as roommates don’t mean you’ll get along easily as a dating couple.
Maybe you aren’t really into each other.
Your roommate is less likely to decline if you insist on turning the situation into a romantic relationship.
It is difficult to know if the other person is on the same chapter as you.
If they are not interested, then that’s some serious trouble you have got yourself into.
7. It’s Just Unnatural
Don’t get me wrong – there are lots of happily married couples out there that met and dated in all sorts of unconventional scenarios.
But let’s not overstate the obvious – a relationship has a better chance of surviving and culminating into something serious, like a marriage for example, if you date from a safe distance.
Trust and bond are built with time. Flipping a roommate into a significant other – just like that – is unnatural or too novel for you to figure out how to navigate through.
It doesn’t matter how seasoned you are in relationships, you are going to begin acting differently if you start dating a person especially if you genuinely love the person.
Related: How Can You Get Your Roommate to Stop Smoking in The House?
Conclusion
Although pretty any type of dating relationship can work if it is tended well by the involved parties, dating a roommate is riskier, meaning the chances of breaking up are very high.
It is worth recommending that you envision the end of this kind of relationship before it even starts.
What if an argument breaks out and it turns out you can’t work out your differences?
Imagine getting tired to a point of requiring a break.
It won’t be easy to do stuff without the knowledge of your roommate turned partner.
Also, you can’t avoid someone live with under the same roof, meaning that once cracks start forming, one of you will have to leave the house.
Look forward to feeling uncomfortable and all manner of awkwardness in your own living space until the lease expires.
