Living With A Roommate

Almost every prayer request I’ve received so far men­tions anx­i­ety about room­mates, so I thought I should offer some thoughts on the subject.

I’ve had over thirty room­mates in my edu­ca­tional career. They’ve ranged from sem­i­nary stu­dents to drug deal­ers, and I even woke up one morn­ing to find an unknown neo-nazi sleep­ing in my roommate’s bed!

In other words, I speak with expe­ri­ence when it comes to room­mates, and the best piece of advice I can give you is this: the way to have a great room­mate is to be a great roommate.

  1. For­bear­ance should be your watch­word. If you don’t know what it means, look it up!
  2. Be real­is­tic. You’re not guar­an­teed to become best friends with your room­mate. In fact, that’s kind of rare. Usu­ally you get a good friend who’s just on the bor­der of your inner cir­cle, and some­times you sim­ply live in the same room and respect one another. Just accept what­ever comes in that department.
  3. Talk frankly about your expec­ta­tions. If you don’t want your room­mate ever touch­ing your stuff, tell them! Be sure to phrase it in a dis­arm­ing way, “Lis­ten, I’m just a lit­tle funny about my stuff. Please don’t touch any of it with­out ask­ing me first.” Also, don’t make that the first thing you say to them. They’re just as ner­vous as you are, and you don’t want to be the roo­mate they had night­mares about!
  4. Never ignore con­flict. If you fail to address irri­ta­tion it grows to frus­tra­tion, then to anger, and then to full-blown ani­mos­ity and resent­ment. A year is a long time to seep in bitterness–don’t let it hap­pen to you.
  5. Be sure to remem­ber these words of advice from God: If you shout a pleas­ant greet­ing to your neigh­bor too early in the morn­ing, it will be counted as a curse! (Proverbs 27:14, NLT) Be sure to respect your roommate’s sleep time. Remember–that one’s from God Himself!
  6. And the most rel­e­vant piece of coun­sel in the whole Bible is the Golden Rule: Do for oth­ers what you would like them to do for you. (Matthew 7.12, NLT) Note that this is a com­mand to engage in good behav­ior, not sim­ply to avoid neg­a­tive stuff. Be proac­tive in treat­ing your room­mate right!

Fol­low the above advice, and you’ll do just fine.

But Sup­pose My Room­mate Isn’t a Chris­t­ian?
What a won­der­ful chance to emu­late Jesus; after all, Christ was known as a friend of sin­ners! How­ever, if you do have a room­mate who isn’t serv­ing Jesus be sure to seek out a net­work of peers who will bol­ster your faith.

In fact, let me take a moment to strongly encour­age you to find a Chris­t­ian group on cam­pus that you click with. I’d be thrilled if you chose Chi Alpha, but my prime con­cern is that you find some­place that will nur­ture your faith. Make find­ing a Chris­t­ian com­mu­nity a top pri­or­ity: Satan feeds off strays!

P.S. If you found this help­ful, you might also want to check out Stan­ford sopho­more Andrew Wright’s advice to fresh­men.