5 Activities that Foster Roommate Bonding

Bonding with your roommate is important for emotional, mental and safety reasons. You need to get to know who you share your living space with. If you’re just strangers passing by, paying rent together, you’ll mistrust your roommate and open the door for conflicts. Try these 5 activities to foster bonding, and to help build a healthy relationship with your roommate:

1. Birthday Dinners

Plan a birthday dinner for your roommate at the apartment or at their favorite restaurant. For example, if you don’t usually cook for each other, it might be a meaningful treat to cook a homemade meal that they enjoy. On the other hand, if you’re always cooking together or for one another, then take them out for a great dining experience.

2. Gardening

Encourage each other to learn gardening skills together, and try your hand at a container garden. This is an excellent bonding activity, because you’ll both be working with your hands, while learning at the same time. Great conversations can happen around planting herbs, vegetables and other plants, and you’ll both feel as if you accomplished something at the end of the activity. You can take it one step further, by taking a gardening class together, if your roommate seems really enthused about learning more and has the time.

3. Pet Walking

Take your pets together for a walk, rather than separately. It’s hard to do this sometimes when you and your roommate are on completely different work or school schedules. However, during the days when your schedules do match, make it a point to walk your dogs together. You’ll get a chance to talk to one another outside of the apartment, and learn more about each other in a different setting. You might also bump into neighbors you know, or meet new ones together, which will be yet another opportunity for bonding.

4. Attend a Presentation

Make time to attend a presentation, recital, lecture, trade show or any other event that your roommate does to display their talent or work. For example, if you roommate is a performance artist, and they’re in a play, try your best to attend. If you live with a budding entrepreneur who has just bought a booth at a trade show that’s near your apartment, attend the show and encourage them. Perhaps your roommate is a writer and has a book signing at the local bookstore. Buy a book and have them sign it. Look for ways to show that you’re interested in them as a person, and that they’re not simply a source of rent payment.

5. Run Together

Do you and your roommate share a passion for running? Schedule time to run together. You may say few words to one another, depending on how hard you workout. However, sharing that time together and engaging in that physical activity is enough to foster a bond.

These activities for bonding with your roommate will take some planning and effort on your part. However, it’s worth it, and you might end up with a long time friend.