Oh my god, I'm in love with my roommate!

However there are some skeptics who see a male-female roommate relationship as nothing but trouble.  There’s a famous line from the hit film When Harry Met Sally that proclaims, “I'm saying…that men and women can't be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.”  If this statement were true, roommates of the opposite sex could never be friends and would certainly have a difficult time sharing a living space together. But contrary to the popular belief that When Harry Met Sally points out, the male-female roommate relationship works really well for most people who attempt it, especially those who set up some ground rules before they move in together.  But there are always a few encounters that inadvertently lead to more-than-friendly feelings on the part of one of the roommates.  This can be potentially disastrous, though also thrilling.  And there are the few success stories of roommates who have actually fallen in love with each other, even if only accidentally.


And on that note, let me introduce you to Chris.  Chris is a great guy who lives in New York City in a nice two-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village with his dog, Walter.  He’s twenty-seven years old and works in the financial industry down on Wall Street.  Chris makes good money but wants to get a roommate to share the exorbitant rent for his current home.  This is where Maggie comes in.  Maggie met Chris for the first time when she answered his online Roommate Wanted ad requesting a “non-smoking professional with good references and no pet allergies.”  Chris interviewed a number of men and women applicants, but Maggie’s credit check and references were the best of the bunch.  She moved into the apartment a couple of weeks after the interview and things were great for the first few months.

Chris loved the new living arrangement.  He was able to save so much more money which he started to put away in hopes of buying a home one day.  And he didn’t have a problem sharing his living room, kitchen and bathroom with Maggie because she was so clean and organized.  She cooked a nice meal once a week and they’d eat together and talk about their jobs and their lives outside of the apartment.  Chris even liked Maggie’s boyfriend, and he let Maggie set him up with some of her friends.  But then one day everything started to change, and Chris noticed that he was hanging out at home more on the weekends, hoping to spend time with Maggie alone.  And when he was at the Virgin Megastore looking at CDs, he was constantly thinking to himself, “This CD would be great to listen to with Maggie when she cooks dinner this week.”  It took some time, but Chris finally realized what was happening to him.  He was falling in love with his roommate.

The warning signs come on slowly, and at first it’s not exactly a very comfortable realization to know you have strong romantic feelings for the person living in the bedroom next to yours.  Chris knew he was in trouble when thoughts of running into Maggie as she was just getting out of the shower both excited and embarrassed him.  All of a sudden he found himself going out of his way to avoid seeing Maggie in the morning before she left for work, going so far as to make himself late for his own job.  Likewise, he chose to stay out later than normal most nights, hoping to appear like a fun-loving person with an active social life.  These common situations are usually failed attempts to make one’s roommate jealous because you’re spending time away from home.  But, like many before him, Chris was over-thinking his every move during this initial “Oh My God, I Can’t Be In Love With My Roommate” stage.

Naturally, any roommate will notice if you’ve been avoiding them, so don’t be surprised if they call you out on your recent absence from the apartment, as Maggie did with Chris.  She even went so far as to ask if he had a secret lover with whom he was spending all his extra time.  Since Chris was really in love with his roommate, he switched into a completely different gear and immediately overcompensated by spending a lot of time at home chilling out on the couch watching re-runs of Oprah after work.  His attempt to appear more available, and even a little more sensitive, also went mostly unnoticed by Maggie.


So what can you do when you find yourself, like Chris, falling in love with your roommate?