The Important Characteristics of Good Roommates

 *) Written by: M.N. Hidayad, M.Pd

If you live in a boarding house or pesantren, you should choose a good person to be your roommate. Otherwise, your life will not be comfortable. Many different types of people can be good roommates. In my opinion there are three important characteristics of good roommates. They should have sense of humor, respects for each other’s belonging, and have a lack of neatness.

The first characteristic of a good roommate is a sense of humor. Any two roommates will be very different people, and they will disagree about many things. However, if they have a sense of humor, then they can laugh about the disagreement instead of arguing about the problem. A good sense of humor is necessary in a roommate.

The next characteristic of a good roommate is respect for each other’s belonging. When two people are roommates, they come into this situation with their own belongings. Because each roommate’s belonging are important to him or her, it is important for each of the roommates to respect the other roommate’s belonging. Respect for each other’s belonging will help to prevent problems between roommates.

The final important characteristic of a good roommate may surprise you, but this characteristic is quite important to me. This final characteristic of a good roommate is a lack of neatness. I am not very neat person, so it would be very hard for me to have a neat roommate. A neat roommate would probably be upset with me much of the time because I am a little messy. If ia had a neat roommate, my roommate and I would probably had problems. The best roommate for me is a rather messy person.

Thus, many different types of people can be good roommates. However, certain characteristics are important to me in a roommate; a sense of humor, respect for each other’s belonging, and not too much need for neatness.  A roommate with those important characteristics will be a successful roommate for me.  

So, what are the characteristics of ideal roommates for you?

*) The writer is a preacher of LDNU Kota Bontang