Remember how you have to earn at least $130,800 to live alone in Manhattan and $88,000 to live alone in Brooklyn?
Yeah, well... a lot of us don't earn that. A lot of us don't even come close.
So what do we do? How to we "make it" in this city when we can't afford to live alone, and we're statistically less likely than anyone else in the country to get married? (Thanks for nothing, math!)
Well, we live with one, two, sometimes even three or four roommates, of course.
There are pros and cons to living with these roommates. On the bright side, we always have friends around us to watch movies with and giggle. Then, of course, we have people with whom to split the electricity, cable, and rent
On the dark side, living with roommates can be really difficult. In New York City, we're all up in each other's space all day long. This includes inside our own apartments.
Read on to find out why we love to hate living with roommates in NYC.
1. Cleaning
peacelovelex__ Yeeeesssssssss !!!!! #roommatestruggles #doyourdishes #fuckilooklike #iaintyamami #dirty #girls #ijustwannaeat #damn
This is absolutely the most contentious aspect of living with roommates. One roommate loves a clean apartment, loves when there's not a single speck of dust and everything's sparkling.
Another roommate loves not worrying about anything until it's all piled up. That roommate won't wash a dish until the sink is full of dishes.
[anad]
Sometimes you just get frustrated with this, suspecting that roommate thinks the trash gets taken out, the dishwasher gets emptied, and the dishes get put away by magic. These are stupid thoughts, though. You regret these thoughts because ultimately, you know they're not bad people.
2. Kitchen space
peallmaivia Ser how I spelled Pur¢ha$e. Don't you hate it when your roommate eats something you bought? #roommatestruggles #roommates #food #drinks #money
Sometimes, the condiment sharing situation is unclear and somehow you wind up with three ketchup bottles in the refrigerator. Or, worse, the condiment sharing situation is unclear. So the same roommate is always the one buying ketchup.
Then that roommate's ketchup supply gets diminished three times faster. The thing about living in NYC is that our apartments tend to be small, and our kitchens tend to be miniscule. Which means things like kitchen space become straight up combative.
One roommate might always occupy the entire kitchen, with dishes splayed all over the place, while another roommate might wind up getting takeout every night so they don't have to battle over counter space.
There are, however, pros to living with roommates: sometimes you all make dinner together, and everyone contributes. These nights are wonderful and delicious.
3. Hooking up
When you live with roommates, sometimes you're prevented from getting it on. Let us explain:
Sometimes the walls of our apartments are paper-thin, so every creak of the bed, every sound released by the people in question carries through every room in the apartment.
Sometimes, you've just come back from a date and you want to beeline straight to your bedroom with said date. However, there's a roommate in the way and you must first make small talk. We all know nothing can murder the mood like smalltalk.
[anad2]
The solution to this is to just accept that sometimes, you're going to hear your roommate doing the dirty. Sometimes you'll find condoms in the kitchen trash can. Sometimes, you'll realize your bedroom door was open the whole time, and your roommate probably heard way too much.
The solution is to just come to terms with all of this.
4. Partying
One of the most vital aspects of a harmonious roommate relationship is to harbor similar ideas about partying.
Here's why: having vastly different expectations about the weekend life of your apartment will have disastrous consequences.
One roommate loves throwing ragers with dozens of people packed into your small space? That roommate better be ready to mop the floors, recycle the beer cans, and clean up puke the next day.
Hopefully, the other roommate is also down for throwing these parties. If not, no one will be happy. Not the partier, nor the party-killer.
,5. Having friends over
montclairmrc #roommategoals you may not have achieved them yet, but at the MRC we wanna help you get there 😍❤👍 #msu #montclair #montclairstate #montclairmrc #youmad #youmadbro #weneedtotalk #comeonein #roommates #roommatestruggles #roomhate #roommategoalsachieved
Ideally, all roommates in question are friends with all the same people, and are all on the same page about whether they want to have company over and music playing on a Wednesday.
But realistically, there's a roommate asking the other roommates to please not have people over, to please turn the music down, to please remember that it's a weeknight.
[anad]
And sometimes the roommates just have different friends.
Having friends in and out of the apartment is just another hard part of having roommates. The key here is to communicate about the situation, and then have compassion about everyone's feelings.
6. TV
You probably subscribe to Time Warner cable, the bane of every New Yorker's existence. Once you've bought access to that terrible cable service, the central TV in every NYC apartment provokes its own cavalcade of problems.
One roommate spends the whole day ticking down the seconds until Monday Night Football, only to be thwarted because another roommate has been dying to watch the Republican Debate.
Then, there's another roommate who doesn't care about any of this, but still has to pay a cable bill to that blasted cable company. #Struggles.
7. Bills
becjoyhov Tapin' dollaz 'n 3D shades to cabinets to show bitches we are serious about dishes. #teamcrunkhouse #roommatestruggles #responsibleadults
Okay, so bills are the reason we even live with roommates in the first place, right? Besides the requisite always-having-constant-access-to-friends, splitting the bills is the reason the whole living with roommates thing has come up in the first place.
So, one roommate has the cable and electricity automatically deducted from their bank account. The other roommates should pay this roommate immediately, since being out double, triple, or quadruple the money is never a blast.
[anad2]
Like we said, though, inevitably some roommate is forgetful of the first roommate's plight. This roommate makes the first roommate ask two, three, even four times to be refunded for bills.
The first roommate has to ask them two, three, even four times for that roommate's rent check.This can be a source of never-ending frustration for these roommates. At least they have each other to split the bills though, right? Right.
Check out 13 Stages of Going to Work in Miserable NYC Weather.
[Feature Image Courtesy Swagger.NYC]