10 Ways to Make Friends with Your College Roommate Without Being Awkward
Your college roommate: part-time cohabitor, full-time mystery character in your college coming-of-age movie.
You’re basically strangers tossed into a 12×12 space with fluorescent lighting and suspicious carpet stains. They will be the first person you’ll have the opportunity to build a real relationship with in college.
Although not everyone gets lucky enough to be assigned a great person as a roomie. Some roommate pairs are the worst thing ever. But hey, if sitcoms have taught us anything, some of the best friendships start with weirdly forced proximity.
Whether your roommate matches your vibe completely or is the Enid to your Wednesday Addams, here are 10 ways to become friends with your college roommate (or at least survive the semester without becoming a cautionary tale).
1. The Classic Icebreaker: Share Snacks
If there’s one universal love language in college, it’s snacks. Offer up your Trader Joe’s cookies, your leftover pizza, your “accidentally” overstocked ramen stash. Food builds trust faster than a deep talk ever could.
Pro tip: “Hey, I got extra fries. You want some?” = instant BFF material.
2. Host a Mini Dorm Movie Night
Drag your desk chairs together, open up Netflix, and pop some popcorn (even if it’s burnt in the dorm microwave — that’s bonding in itself). Let them pick the movie first. Bonus points if it’s something ridiculous like Sharknado.
Add mood lighting = ✨instant vibe✨.
3. Create a Shared Playlist for the Room
Okay, this one is a bit out there. You don’t just ask someone to create a shared playlist; that’s like asking them to have a baby with you. But you could make it casual.
“Hey, I’m creating a shower playlist for when I get ready in the mornings. Can you recommend some songs for me to throw in?”
They’ll give you their favourites, and the next day, you can play the playlist out loud and you both vibe together.
Whether you’re both into alt-rock, Afrobeats, chill lo-fi, or a chaotic mix of everything (hello Disney Channel throwbacks), a shared Spotify playlist is a cute and subtle way to connect. It’s like your room’s background music, and a mini peek into each other’s personalities.
4. Plan a Dorm Room Makeover
Pick a weekend and decide to finally make your dorm cute. Hang fairy lights. Tape up a collage wall. Laugh at your mutual inability to center posters. Bonus bonding if you hit up a dollar store or IKEA together and argue over fake plants.
You don’t have to have a joint aesthetic, again, hello Wednesday and Enid.
Suggest doing a room makeover, ask them if they want to do it with you, if not, fix up your side, and see if that sparks conversation and bonding. No one can truly resist a room makeover.
5. Create a Roommate Ritual
Start with something easy, like picking a cleaning day. You both have to clean the room, right?
So make that bonding time. Once you get a bit closer, you can build fun rituals.
Weekly Sunday night ramen review? Thirsty Thursday TikTok dance challenge? Midnight tea and gossip hour?
Doesn’t matter what it is, shared routines = instant comfort and familiarity.
Start small. Rituals become memories real quick.
6. Be Each Other’s Emotional Support Human During Crisis Week
Is it finals? Are you both dying inside? Good. Suffer together.
Make a pact: one person brings caffeine, the other supplies memes. You don’t have to study the same subject to share the same pain.
“If you quiz me on bio, I’ll help you fake cry in your email to that one professor.”
Deal.
It could also be relationship drama or outfit selection crisis. Are you getting Grownish flashbacks? Because I am.
Whatever their drama, be there for them. Don’t make it a one-way thing, though. Give them room to show up for you when you need them too.
7. Get Dressed Up and Go Somewhere Dumb
Yes, wear your cutest outfit… to the campus dining hall. Or a random club meeting neither of you actually plan to join. Or to Trader Joe’s. It’s giving “delusionally hot main character energy” and bonding over shared chaos.
Bonus: Insta content. Friendship documented. Roommate of the Year secured.
This is ideally a freshman year activity. Once you settle into schoolwork, you won’t be able to go anywhere but class, the library, and that one cafe that sells suspiciously strong coffee.
8. Make a “Roommate Contract,” But Make It Chaotic
Sheldon Cooper energy, yes please!
Sure, you need to set some basic ground rules. But why not spice it up?
Create a roommate agreement that includes:
- Who’s in charge of killing bugs
- What music is banned before 10 a.m.
- When visitors are allowed, and how you should notify each other when hosting guests
- What happens if someone eats the last cookie (Hint: It better involve glitter or a dramatic public apology)
You’ll laugh and cover your bases.
All jokes aside, it really is important to have an agreement on what each person can and can’t do and when they can or can’t do it. You can go from a friendship story to a horror story very fast without rules.
As soon as you both get settled in the room, schedule a time to discuss ground rules. It will save you much stress and help avoid embarrassing moments.
9. Drag Them to a Club Meeting or Campus Event
“Come with me or I’ll tell people you sleep with a Squishmallow.”
Drag them to the dance club, the finance society, the random “paint a tote bag” night in the student center. They may groan. But they’ll remember it.
Also, friends who embarrass each other in public = forever.
10. Just Be Genuinely Nice (Groundbreaking, I Know)
Sometimes, the best bonding moments come from simply saying:
- “How was your day?” (and actually listening)
- “Need help carrying that?”
- “Wanna talk or should I give you space?”
Your roommate might not be your future maid of honor or godparent to your cat, and that’s okay. But kindness? Always a win.
Give The Energy You Want Returned
You don’t have to be soulmates. You don’t have to be best friends. But it honestly is better to get along than to fight. Unless your roommate is just a walking red flag.
In that case, well… there’s nothing you can do but keep to yourself and hope for a better person next year.
Red flag or not, always give your roommate the same energy you would want them to give you.
Understand that they’re their own person with different tastes and values.
Set and respect boundaries.
Coexisting with kindness, humor, and a shared playlist is basically a college superpower.
So go ahead. Offer the cookie. Suggest the movie. Make the playlist. It might be the start of a beautiful (and slightly chaotic) friendship.
Now go forth and roommate like a legend.
Wishing you peace and funds,
Dee
