Types of roommates and how to deal with them

Roommates can become your best friends or they can be your villain origin story, but either way they will make your life a more interesting one.

One of the first things that you will be doing before coming to study in Groningen is finding accommodation; and odds are that when looking at the prices of housing in The Netherlands you will resign yourself that living with roommates is the only choice left for you to be able to afford housing. Now, this is not all bad, living with someone else is a unique university experience that most internationals have dealt with, and there are many great success stories of befriending your roommates, in a New Girl kind of way. However, for this to happen you need to get lucky. In the blog we are going to explore together some of the types of roommates that you can find in Groningen, some tips on how to keep the peace at home, and some of my catastrophic anecdotes with my roommates.  

The good types of roommates

It would be almost impossible to take all the different types of people living in Groningen and categorize them into specific types of roommates. Great roommates come normally on two types of packages: they become your absolute best friends, or they assume the role of showing you how to survive on your own. The first kind are amazing, normally they will share some aspects of your culture, making it easier to form a stronger bond. They will become your new family, and all your experiences as university students will be among their side. The second kind are, in my opinion, the best ones to have when you just arrived in any place. They are normally a bit older than you and have already experience what you will go through. These types of roommates will function as a fake parent, helping you with stuff like getting registered to the municipality or to the doctor's office. The types of side quests that you have never imagined that need to be done, and for some reason will take 4 working days and make you question who on Earth created bureaucracy.  

The not so good types of roommates

As you can get lucky with getting amazing roommates, you can also get the other side of the coin. There are two general characteristics that most problematic roommates have in common: they have either clearly never done anything without their mom, or, they are ruling a directorship regime in their spare time. To both cases, your plan of action to deal with them should look something like this: 

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  • If you have more than 1 roommates, talk with them to see if their behaviour is also problematic for them 
  • Find a way to talk to them without sounding confrontational.  
  • It can be something like this: “I think it would be better for everyone if we clean the dishes after we have finished using them, that way is easier for others to clean, and we always have plates available.”    
  • If the first try didn't work, then telling them in a more direct way is the only thing left. Always having in mind to be as polite as possible.  
  • If that doesn't work, then you might need to give yourself a pep-talk before walking out of your room and just hang in there like the rest of us mortals. 

These cases are a bit extreme, but not impossible to come across. In a more realistic scenario, the roommates are more likely to keep to themselves, some become a literal ghost that you will see twice a month and kind of forget about their existence only to be reminded by random laundry in the living room. Others are just utterly chill, with whom you'll have friendly conversation in the kitchen, and not a lot of issues will arise with them. These cases are a perfect medium of the spectrum of roommates, and the most likely case that you will encounter. The most important thing is to always have in mind that your roommates come from a different culture, and that comes with implications that you may never even think about. So as long as there is always an understanding and an open mind, things will never escalate to serious conflict.  

Feel the vibe

Now that you know a bit more about how it is to live with roommates, you need to put your hands to work to help your future self have the best time in Groningen. Finding housing is one of the most stressful things that you will go through, however it's always important to have in mind your interests. When going to a viewing, feel the vibe that you get from the roommates, and if you are not feeling it, do not take it. Your roommates are basically your family away from home so it's important to have a good relationship with them, or at least give it a try. You will be doing yourself a favour, because not having a safe space to come home to will really impact your life, and living in Groningen will not be the amazing experience that it's meant to be.  

My experience

My experience with roommates has not been the best, but it definitely has given me tons of anecdotes. I live with four other people, all of them are friends and share a similar lifestyle, while I'm the odd one out. At some point they tried to change my eating habits by making rules on which days were acceptable to eat meat. They also implemented a timer in the shower for all of us (me) to keep track of our water usage and have discussions about how to improve it. Anecdotes like this I have hundreds, and as annoyed can get sometimes, they are good people, and we have a generally nice relationship. We have monthly dinners and they do care about me and my studies here, always having nice conversations when we find ourselves to be in the same room. So even though me and my roommates didn't become best friends, I am grateful to have them as roommates. Living in Groningen will make you put things into perspective, and when you come here you'll realize as well that living in Groningen is the best, with or without your roommates as besties.  

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