How to choose a flat-mate
We’re all born with flat-mates we cannot choose, they’re called our family. But when the time comes to move out, you get to choose who you stay with. After 4 years of moving out of my home, I have collected some insights on how to choose your flat-mates. People often downplay this choice. They think that as long as there is some semblance of working relationship within flat-mates, living together can be managed. They’re wrong. Choosing who you share your living space with is a very important and impactful decision. Here are some insights.
Types of flat-mates
I have had four sets of flat-mates over five years (five if you count my family during the pandemic, and yes they’re the best flat-mates :P). Living with different types of people, in different types of spaces has taught me some fundamental lessons about living outside your home.
Before I get into what to look for in a flat-mate, I’d like to record my observation of the types of flat-mates I’ve encountered.
The hedonist: This is that flat-mate who is a party animal, does not care about what happens in the flat and does not take any responsibility. Takes out the most advantage of living outside home.
The godfather: This is the flat-mate who is the most responsible one. They make sure that food is stocked and bills are payed. Without them, the system collapses.
The breeze: This is the flat-mate in the middle. The one who mostly stays out of the flat, does his own thing. Will do stuff for the flat when asked to, not particularly inclined to.
People either already belong to either of these categories as per their innate personality or sometimes fit into them as and when they start to live together. So insight number one is to gauge potential flat-mates for the type of flat-mate they are likely to become. A model I often use to judge people and myself is to focus on actions and not words. Richard Feynman used to say, “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.” Do not fall for promises and assurances, judge by action and not intention. Or as the Royal society’s motto says ‘Nullius in Verba’ - take no one’s word for it.
Given that it is very likely that irrespective of their individual nature, when living together, people’s personalities change relative to each other’s. So if I’m a moderately responsible person living with a very responsible person, I am likely to become more relaxed and less responsible, since the other person will take care of most things. Likewise, a moderately responsible person is likely to become more responsible if they are in company of someone who takes no responsibility.
Living with people who do not fall into the same category, at least absolutely if not relatively, often leads to conflict. So insight number two is to choose similar people as flat-mates. Similar in temperament, not generally. The reason I say that is one of the most enriching experience of living in a flat/hostel is the sheer diversity of opinions and experiences it brings. There is often minimal judgement, no coercion because people are often around the same age, and greater freedom. So if you can chose, choose for diversity outside of temperament.
You’re most likely to move out of your home due to college. Most parents like to leave their wards in paying guest accommodations, rather than let them live alone or in flats. After a year of living in (un)reasonable restrictions in PGs, most students quite naturally move into flats. I did the same. But I committed the most common mistake, which was to move in with my friends. It is a bit difficult to come to realize that moving in with friends is a bad idea. It is a bad idea because your friendship with them is most likely not formed on the basis of how they occupy their living space, which is the number one thing to choose for when choosing a flat-mate. What almost always ends up happening is that your earlier friendship with them dilutes because of new conflicts arising out of living together. I have personally experienced two falling out with my two really good friends because of it. Insight number three is to not move in with your really good friends.
On the other hand, this gets us into a dilemma. If one should ideally only move in with people one knows, but also not with very close friends, who do you move in with? The answer, as Ashish Kulkarni often says, is somewhere in the middle. Pick someone you know enough of, or about, to choose for similarity in temperament. The reason I would suggest this over, say, letting random permutations play it out is because, the latter is random. One should ideally control as many variables as one can. And with choosing people you share your space with, one should definitely choose for things rather than having them chosen for you randomly.
The issue with writing about most things, not just this topic, is how general advice is almost always wrong advice1. Because advice is at the end of the day is optimization under constraints, and without knowing the particular constraints, you cannot sufficiently optimize things. However I do believe that insights are sufficiently general in nature, even though they’re subjective in origin. The human condition is far more similar than we assume it is.
Knowing how to resolve conflicts becomes a key skill while living in a flat. In hostel at least, a lot of things are individualized and there is not a lot of co dependency (for example, you will not have to worry about your friend getting the right vegetables in a hostel). In a flat however, your day to day life is intimately connected to your flat-mates. Their behavior affects and shapes your routine. If the person who was supposed to switch on the motor forgot to switch it on, you won’t have water to bathe. If the person supposed to buy vegetables bought bad veggies, there will not be food to eat. If a flat-mate ate your cereal, you won’t have breakfast to eat tomorrow - you get what I mean. In such a situation, a conflict between flat-mates has much more of a repercussion than for example, a conflict between hostel mates. However I feel that conflict resolution as a flat-mate is nothing different from conflict resolution as a person in general. However I’ve observed that most conflicts in a flat arise from the lack of similarity in temperament, or imbalance in the amount of responsibility taken up by people. Both of these problems are actually very hard problems to solve because they are problems of habit. And it is very hard to impress upon someone enough to make them change their habit, and attitude. Lazy people will probably remain lazy no matter what you say to them and irresponsible people will remain irresponsible. The first one is a problem you should try to solve pre facto, and the second one is a pure post facto problem.2
Additionally, the second category of problems are collective action problems i.e. things that ideally require participation of everyone to solve. Things like cleaning, buying things for the flat, talking to landlord etc. Ideally none of these things should fall solely on only one or two person’s shoulders, but that’s how it usually goes down. And the issue with these collective action problems is that without collective will, things have to continuously keep going south for someone to finally snap and solve the problem all by themselves. Many times I’ve cleaned the whole flat by myself because no one else would would care to keep cleanliness. It is a taxing and unjust use of my time and energy (or for that matter, any person who snaps first. I’m not implying that I am always this person), and things would go on much smoother and better for everyone if people solved the collective action problem, (wait for it you’re not going to believe the solution), collectively. I have never seen any successful division of labor in a flat, but maybe that could be one of the solutions.
After giving out this pessimistic account of living with flat-mates, one would assume that it is not a good experience at all. But it is quite the inverse. It has brought me immeasurable joy every time , and has given me memories I will cherish forever. Most importantly, it taught me how live by my self. From finances, to dating. Living alone teaches you things you simply cannot learn while living with your family. It has taught me how to be my own person. I wouldn’t be the Divyanshu Dembi you see if not for these years of living out of home.
Shoutout to Splitwise for making living in a flat so much more easier. (Not a paid placement, I really love their product).
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I credit this statement to Patrick Collison, however I cannot recall where I heard him say this.
Pick for similar flat-mates, and when you have flat-mates divide responsibility uniformly.