Do aspies make good room mates?

Post Reply New Topic

I want your opinions, and even better would be your personal experience. Pros and cons, etc.

Yeah, I know, it depends on the person, but you might give me an idea that wouldn't have dawned on me otherwise. There's this guy, and I've known him casually for ten years, but I'm wondering if he'd make a good room mate. He's aspie, but undiagnosed.

The worst person for me to live with and the best person for me to live with are almost certainly both on the spectrum.

The best person is my boyfriend.

The worst person was someone I lived with a few years ago who ended up emotionally abusing me.

Things to be aware of:
-Neither of you will react well to changes.
-They have rituals, you also have rituals. These might not work well together.

It might work well, it might, you need to go through and figure out the basics of living together and actively think about it rather than assuming it'll work. Things that are normally just compromised about aren't necessarily when you're discussing people on the spectrum. If you think about this discuss things like:
-What temperature will the thermostat be set to
-When will people shower? for how long? How long will the bathroom be occupied for daily care activities?
-Do either of you have sensory needs the other can't deal with, either in terms of things you can't be around, or things you can be around.
-How is food being handled? How are dishes being handled?
-How well can each of you compromise if it comes up? How able are each of you to deviate from what you're used to? How much have you had practice with it?
-How does money work? Aspies are more likely to be unemployed. Are you able to not worry about bills? If a bill is too high, what will you do? Will you think about things like reducing heat if you have to pay too much or is that not an option. (See also, question 1)
-What are your agreements on people visiting you?

Can it work? Yes. However, its something to be careful about. In my case, I'm the type of aspie who avoids confrontation and goes out of my way to not hurt others, and the person I was living with was the type which cannot deal with anything being a little different than he's always had it and won't even think about compromising.

It ended up terrible. I'm still recovering years later and am scared that I won't recover.

I've had two people ask if I need a roommate prior, and each time I've asked, "well.... what do they do for a living?".

Both times I was told "well, they just got out of prison......".

So I might be biased but I wouldn't mind an aspie or NT, if I was confident they weren't brining an unknown factor into my life. Such as drugs, liquor, loud music, long "hocking" sounds at night, snoring, or unusual smells. My suggestion would be to ignore the obvious, and instead aim for entering their current living space to understand them better.

I typically can't stand people, so I have never had a roommate. Nor do I have house guests. But I generally pace constantly, or watch peculiar shows that make me happy many times over. Another aspie like myself would drive me crazy, and we'd probably bump into each other while pacing.

It really depends on the person.

Although, for an Aspie, I can be quite flexible.

As an aspie, I have been in three roommate situations outside of my family. The first situation was in a dorm, in that sort of close quarters I made a horrible roommate, as I am disorganized and bad at cleaning, and I was continually super stressed because I had no personal space.

The other two situations have been in apartments. In both situations I have been called a good roommate. I like to talk about every aspect of living together first - when you go to bed, when are people over, how to you say if people are coming over, do you split or share groceries and cooking, how do you organize the pantry and other storage, where do you sit, how do you decide where the furniture goes, who brings what furniture, what is each person bringing to the apartment, how does laundry times work etc (the full list is fairly long).

The problem with the first roommate was she was very picky about furniture and colors and I felt that my opinion did not matter, I did not express my frustration to her but I escaped the situation as fast as I could (she would have prefered us to stay in the same housing situation together).

My current living situation is going well. My roommate seems happy with our arrangement (and I make sure to ask if she is happy with the living situation every few months to make sure). Knowing the details of the situation before hand were helpful to me, and knowing that I will have forewarning and/or be involved in the planing of any "major" change (such as having guests over or adding or moving furniture etc.). It also helps me to know my roommates work schedule (she is a night nurse at the ER, and the schedule changes each week) not because I am stalkerish, but it helps to bring order and stability to my universe.

If you have unpredictable habits an aspie might not make a good roommate. Either way talking about all the details well in advance will help. For me personally I am very flexible in many areas if I have forewarning.

You sound way more mature than I was at fifteen. I wouldn't even have had an opinion on room mates back then.

Absolutely not.

*bump

I was hoping to hear a few more anecdotes or opinions. I know somebody and they'd probably room with me, but I'm not sure. Maybe some other stories could lend some insight?

I wasn't a very good roommate when I was in college for a little over a semester . But I wouldn't blame that on being aspie, I felt depressed so I left the place trashed. Not saying its okay but it wasn't to big of a deal since he slept over in his girlfriends room most of the time.

I also think my roommate could have had mild symptoms of aspergers. For the first 2 weeks we didn't say much lol.

Pros and cons of aspie roommates:

+ They're often private, keeping to themselves rather than, say, bringing friends over and yapping at 3 in the morning when you're trying to sleep.
+ Many of them will follow reasonable rules you give about the house to the letter. This includes quiet hours, putting stuff away, not eating others' food without permission, etc.
+ They're unlikely to have girlfriends/boyfriends, and even less likely to make out in public. If they do have a relationship the other person will probably be quiet.
+ Many of them will follow apartment/dorm rules to the letter, so it's less likely that there will be alcohol/drugs or other contraband in the room without your knowledge.

- They can sometimes be really particular about furniture and decorations, even in public areas.
- Many of them are messy, because they're not used to cleaning up for the sake of other people.
- They can have sensory problems, meaning that noises that wouldn't bother other people will bother them, making you have to be much quieter than normal during their sleeping/studying hours.
- They might occasionally embarrass you with stimming and stuff in front of your friends.

Simple fix "noise cancelling earplugs".

Not if I'm anything to go by.

I was a pretty terrible roommate, but I also didn't really have a choice of housemates and ended up with (I think) some really inconsiderate people.
They would slam the front door every time they left or came home, and would stomp up the stairs and down them. Really, really loudly.
One of them got a dog halfway through the year but didn't take care of it, so I'd come home to find his leash shut in the door and him outside in the rain with maybe 2 feet of space to move.
They would cook at all hours and stay in the kitchen forever. It was ridiculously stressful to find a time when no one was in the kitchen so that I could cook.
It didn't help that one of the guys let his friend sleep in the living room for about nine months, and he was always sitting on the couch playing video games. He would talk to me every time I opened my door, about absolutely nothing. Once he even knocked on my door at about 10pm because he was bored and wanted to hang out.
Basically I never had the house to myself, so I couldn't cook or clean or really even leave my room without having to interact with people.
My roommates shysted me on almost all the bills, to the point that I think I must have paid at least half of every power/water bill. (With the couch guy and semi-permanent family member one guy had living with him, it should have been 4-5 of us contributing to bills but I'd end up paying almost 200 every month for two bills). There was also a fiasco involving someone supposedly moving away, and he collected about 250 overall from me trying to "transfer the bills into someone else's name" and then ended up not moving and not returning the original deposit or the second one.
They would do laundry at all hours of the night (right outside my bedroom door) and leave the dryer buzzer on, even though they wouldn't get their stuff out of the dryer when it buzzed.
Anything I had in common rooms was tampered with and when I bought food that couch guy wanted, he went for it. When I left for longer than a few hours they went into my room (I assume couch guy was looking for verde).
I ended up packing all my things and leaving town with three months and change left on my lease, but about 6 months unpaid rent. I would feel bad about this except I'm pretty sure they still made a profit off of me.
All things to think about when considering a potential roommate.

I have earplugs, and have sometimes found them not to be enough! Before I moved I could still hear my roommate's girlfriend talking loudly in their room (right next to mine) while I was trying to sleep, even with earplugs! If I hear human voices AT ALL while trying to sleep at night (when I'm less sleepy) or study, I absolutely cannot sleep!!

I need about twice the noise reduction offered by the best earplugs I can find (~34 dB NRR) to block out all the sounds that college has! That would also mean not hearing my alarm, though...

I think my ears can hear about 5-10 dB better than most people's. With 0 dB as the threshold of human hearing, I might be able to hear negative 5 dB!

I can only speak for myself personally, but I have a tendency to want to control my environment. That means I will want to organize your dishes according to size, clean a certain way and make sure the shower door is always open

If you don't mind that then we might get along.

These passive or active? You can change your alarm to a vibrating one or a device that can activate an alarm through the plugs. Playing white noise? or music.

Last edited by TechnoDog on 20 Mar 2012, 9:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.