We’ve all had our fair share of roommates. From the college one you’re randomly matched with to the best friend you share your first apartment with or even the significant other that you’re cohabitating with, finding the right roommate can enhance your living situation dramatically. The wrong roommate can make your living situation awkward at best and miserable at worst. Because of this dynamic, roommates have always made great content for television. The hilarious hijinks, fights, and emotions that run rampant in roommate situations make great fodder for television sitcoms.
Here are some lessons we’ve learned from watching these television roommates that we can apply to our own life:
1. Men and women can be roommates and can even be “just friends.”
If Three’s Company taught us anything, it’s that the platonic relationship between male and female roommates can remain strictly platonic. When Jack Tripper moves in with Janet Wood and Chrissy Snow into Apartment 201 in the series’ first episode, viewers had never seen co-ed roommates living together. These roommates get into their fair share of escapades, misunderstandings, and struggles with paying rent throughout the series, but underneath it all they taught us that, yes, men and women can live together without it becoming romantic.
2. Get a roommate agreement!
Sheldon and Leonard, roommates on The Big Bang Theory, may have many disagreements but Sheldon’s ironclad “Roommate Agreement” that he drafted when Leonard first moved in helps dispute any arguments!
3. Your roommates will always be there for you.
Just as the theme songs says, they’ll be there for us. We’re lucky if we can find roommates that are close to us as Monica and Rachel and Joey and Chandler were to each other on NBC’s long-running sitcom Friends. But if you do, the roommate bond can be as close as the bond you share with a family member.
4. If you’re messy, it’s nice to have a roommate that is clean.
Nick, Jess, and Winston on FOX’s New Girl are lucky to have a roommate like Schmidt who is obsessive compulsive about cleaning. Who knows what their apartment would look like without Schmidt’s anal-retentive need to sanitize! This doesn’t mean you should pick up after yourself, however. No one likes a messy roommate.
5. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. Time to move out!
Hannah and Marnie from HBO’s Girls lived together in New York City after college and their tumultuous relationship came to a head when they fought over each other’s polar opposite personalities. Sometimes when you just can’t agree on things, it’s time to move on. Which is why Hannah and Marnie decide to split and Marnie moves out. Perhaps the friendship can be salvaged, but if these girls from Girls taught us anything, it’s that if a roommate relationship isn’t working, it’s best for both parties to split.
