How to Make Friends with Your Roommates
Moving to a dorm from home is always connected to certain expectations and fears at the same time. College is a new stage of one’s life. Friends you have known for years are now far away, just as your parents. You are thrown into a different reality.
And you need some new friends there. Most probably, your dorm room is at least for two. That means you’ve got a person to spend a couple of years together. But how can you make friends with a roommate? Actually, it’s easier than you might think.
Here are nine tips to help you become friends with a dorm neighbor. Don’t skip this opportunity, even if you are a staunch introvert. It is better to spend years having a reliable friend nearby, not a random stranger, or, what’s much worse, an irritated foe.
1. Talk to Them
Nothing will be possible without a word being said. You’ll be lucky if your roommate decides to start your first conversation on their own. However, most probably, they’ll be waiting for the opposing side to take a step. Catch and use that initiative.
After the first contact is done, it becomes much simpler to build your further interaction. A first word is a fundament for all the following recommendations.
2. Find What You’ve Got in Common
It can be your music taste. Favorite movies. Video games. Hobbies. Subjects you like the most. Places you’ve been to or would like to visit. And anything else.
All the topics mentioned above are potential contact points. It will surely become simpler to find something to discuss after you find what you and your neighbors like.
3. Know More about Their Family and Past
Mostly, people like discussing their families and native neighborhoods. If you genuinely want to try making friends with your roommates, a sincere but not insisting interest in their family, childhood, and pre-college experience is great to get you all closer to each other.
Life stories are the best drivers to kickstart a new friendship. Mix them up with funny and kind jokes, and they’ll turn into an exciting and entertaining experience. Still, it is crucial to make sure people don’t go too far with their questions. There always can be particular moments a person would prefer to keep private. Avoid being too curious. Otherwise, your interest can spoil that new relationship once and for all.
4. Share Your Anxieties
Moving to a dorm is always stressful. Changing one’s environment so rapidly can’t be easy for anyone. Try not to close your fears inside your soul and staying one on one with that anxiety. No matter how confident your new neighbor looks, they are worried, too.
A simple decision to share that discomfort with a roommate will most probably cause a mutual reaction from their side. Then, you can try figuring out how to deal with new challenges together. Show them that you are ready to pass through dorm trials as a team member. You’ll notice how your major fears become minor ones after that.
5. Share a Meal
Nothing strengthens a friendly relationship as a shared tasty meal does. Whenever you order pizza delivery, cook something, bring a chocolate plate or a pack of stacks from the store, offer your roommate to taste it together. If they refuse, you might want to try finding out what their gastronomical preferences are. The best way to do that is to ask them directly.
Again, don’t be too quick and intrusive. People are different, and not every person is ready to share their tastes with a stranger. Take that into account when starting a conversation.
6. Watch a Movie
It will be polite to let your neighbor offer a film or a series to watch on some weekend evening. However, if you know each other’s preferences already, it won’t become a problem for you to pick something everyone in the room would enjoy.
The evolutionary development of this initiative can be coming up with a movie night tradition. For example, you can watch new action movies every Saturday. It can be great to set up a monthly plan including titles picked by each roommate.
7. Play a Game Together
In 2021, students most probably have laptops. Windows or macOS laptop computers can run many different video games. A huge part of them can be played online with friends. In case your new friends like spending their time in virtual worlds, you know what to do.
It’s up to you what genres and gameplay styles you prefer. You and your roommates may want to stand against each other in fighting or racing arcades, to play as a team in MOBA or shooter games to compete with other players, or to play story-driven games that have cooperative game modes in them.
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By the way, don’t forget to find out about the hardware capabilities of each other’s computers before offering games to play. However, most co-op and competitive online titles don’t require extremely powerful gaming machines to run them with comfort.
8. Offer Help
Your roommate will require assistance with some issues sooner or later. Trouble can be referred to their current wellbeing, studying, mood, or anything. They may be too shy or worried to ask for assistance on their own. So, whenever it seems a neighbor could use some help, try to offer it first, don’t wait until they call you.
Actually, this is one of the most solid ways to become friends. Solving each other’s troubles together makes people closer much faster than anything else.
9. Study Together
It may work even if you have your majors different. Teamwork is critical for academic progress. Both you and your roommates will study more effectively if you’ll be able to support each other through finding suitable learning materials, learning how to write essays well, reviewing college research paper samples, and, of course, preparing for exams.
To Conclude
Making friends with roommates is easy when you are open to people and not afraid to talk to them first. All that is needed is to find common interests, offer support, and spend time together in many different ways.
By the way, a friendship that begins during college years has a high chance to last for the whole life. Do not miss your opportunities!
How to Make Friends With Your Roommates
