Flatting with friends? Don’t.

By Emily Wilson (she/her)

As exciting and fun as it sounds, flatting with friends is the worst idea. I’ll be honest, it does start off great, living with friends, no rules, constant fun and laughter, what could be better?

In second year, I flatted with a group of girlfriends I’d made the previous year, and we were so excited to move out into our own place without any of the silly hall rules. It was so good, we all got along super well, I had 4 wardrobes of clothes to choose from when I decided I didn’t like any of my own; always hanging out together and going out and doing things all together, it was great! Until it wasn’t. Those little petty arguments started to creep up on us, the passive aggressive messages in the flat chat started to appear more often. Dividing up the responsibilities seemed like a good idea, this was only the case if everyone were to do their weekly assigned job... this only worked for about the first 2 weeks of having a roster, some of us kept to our jobs and did them weekly, some of us didn’t which made the people who did frustrated and angry.

Then there were dishes, this was a whole different game. I’ve noticed that there are three different types of people when it comes to cleaning/or not cleaning the dishes:

• “Heyy can everyone please do their dishes it’s getting really gross and starting to smell x” -sent into the group chat.

• The person who refuses to touch anyone else and just does theirs (which can also be 1).

• The very rare person who doesn’t complain and just does them without any fuss, a.k.a. an angel.

I lived with my only friends in Wellington. We all did everything together but as soon as you were left out of an activity, even if it wasn’t malicious, it was still not nice, and those little things started to put a strain on our friendship. So, I moved out and wow I’ve never had such healthy relationships with my friends. I can choose when to see them and when I don’t want to. If I need my alone time, I can easily do that and not feel left out when I hear them all laughing in the living room and feeling the need to be a part of it and sacrifice my own time.

Obviously, this isn’t the case for all friend groups who live together, but as soon as those petty and passive aggressive messages start to appear there is no turning back – I’d leave before it’s too late, save yourself.