It’s the first day of university and you’re moving into your assigned accommodation. Your family has dropped you off, you’ve unpacked half of your kitchenware and are trying to get a sense of your new flatmates by the collection of empty boxes and packaging beside the bin and a mug in the drying rack. As you question how to make the hobs work in your new student proof kitchen that the university is terrified of you burning down, you hear the door open behind you and a complete stranger, who you will spend the next nine months living with, walks in. You exchange pleasantries, ask the default questions of course – where they’re from, and how moving in is going. Then you both disappear back to your rooms and question if that instant best friend connection with this person might be under the surface and a little less instant than promised, or if this will be the housemate you try and avoid running into at all costs.
While some people might find their best friends for life, most people get some middle ground: a couple of people you get on very well with, a couple you’d don’t see very much of, and one or two you don’t get on with. My experience in first year was pretty average.
The main thing I learned from this experience is that making friends with your flatmates is often more effort than they tell you. Same as any friendship, it can be situational and benefit from that, but it can rely on someone to push beyond the default conversations in the kitchen or after class. Two of my first year flatmates were international students in long term relationships – these two we only saw a few times a week. Lovely people, but not a lot in common with the other few flatmates. From there, it was only three of us that spent time together.
For myself and Room 5, we were the troubled night owls, often crossing paths when one of us got back late and the other was still up studying over a coffee, or on nights we couldn’t sleep. Our friendship was based on shared stress, but also on her genuine kindness and intention – she was the one who suggested movie nights, shopping trips, and asked if I wanted to talk about what was bothering me that week.
Meanwhile, Room 2 was a ‘Netball Girly’. I usually saw her when she was on her way out to training or sports socials in ridiculous outfits. She was also a big part of the planned evenings. There was a prank war (affectionate) between Rooms 2 and 5, and I joined in when I wanted, we cooked together sometimes and redecorated the common room for the seasons, and did a Christmas dinner with a few neighbouring flats.
However, when everyone started discussing living situations for next year, Room 5 wanted to get a studio, Room 2 was moving in with her teammates, and Rooms 3 and 4 were moving in with other people as well. I was left wondering what to do when I could see my other friends sticking with the people they were living with this year and I questioned if the friendships with my current housemates were weaker than I thought.
There were some people I knew living in a flat of six and were all planning to stick together for the following year. Others that at least had one of their current flatmates in their second year house. Others who had found their flatmates messy and unfriendly and made plans already to move in with the friends they had made in week two. It was an odd feeling to be in the middle ground of it all.
I had tried the Housemate Finder events at the Guild and looked around on Overheard. I’ve known people with amazing luck finding people that way, but I wasn’t one of them.
Meeting people outside your accommodation is essential in my opinion. I found my second year housemates through a combination of sheer luck and the kind connections through other parts of university. One I met through my course, and after a few months we realised many of our friends had plans to move in with other people and gravitated to each other. We then had a failed house with two other people who dropped out after a house viewing followed by a dodgy contract.
It took asking around in February at a society I attended if anyone was looking for housemates. Someone heard me and put me in touch with a friend looking for two housemates to fill in the slots. My course mate and I joined the house. It was a touch of bad then good luck. Second year we were there for each other’s late night academic crises, the (occasionally) early morning breakfasts before lectures, and movie nights after dinner.
It wasn’t always plain sailing; there were negotiations over dishes, cleaning, stocking and sharing of house supplies, and often one person would get stuck negotiating the peace. Still, that was the house I got to live more independently in, feel like an adult, and where I enjoyed the ‘best friend experience’ of housemates through people I only got to know properly after we moved in together. Sometimes it takes a while, don’t be down if you’re not there yet, and remember that chore wheels won’t always feel like a contract negotiation.
