There really is a difference between knowing your friends and knowing their shower schedules.
I discovered this, among other things—like how one of my friends watches the same 30 minutes of “Legally Blonde” on mute before going to bed, or how another likes to call out unofficial things on the washing machine at 6 a.m.—during my senior year of college, when I moved into a six-bedroom house with seven of my closest girlfriends for our senior year of college.
Living on the beach Senior year was something everyone was talking about on the campus of San Diego State University – a college dream we’d heard about for years but never thought we’d ever achieve.
Suddenly it was no longer hypothetical when a girl living in a house in Pacific Beach, California, about a twenty-minute drive from our school, said her house might open. A few of us toured there and before we knew it, we signed a lease.
When we were getting ready to move in, we couldn’t wait for sandy feet, tipsy sunset walks, and impromptu fish taco runs. But we wondered if we could get into one popular beach destination would put too much pressure on our wallets.
It turned out to be cheaper and logistically easier than we ever expected.
Finances were evenly distributed and we used a spreadsheet to avoid chaos
Getting eight people into one house was a challenge, but dividing the finances was easy. Isabella Dallas
Us house with six bedrooms was essentially a long rectangle with attached rooms. One of the previous tenants, who lived with six other roommates, told us it would be “plenty of space,” but we realized that was a generous interpretation.
Even though it was a challenge to get so many people into this house, dividing the finances was surprisingly easy.
We split utilities evenly and split rent based on room size. I wanted the cheapest option, so I shared the master bedroom with my boyfriend, who I had known since freshman year. The room could barely fit two wobbly Amazon twin beds, but my rent was just over $1,000 a month, so I never complained.
Moreover, we always have divide household expensessuch as cleaning supplies and furniture, eight ways, with the plan to sell everything at the end and split the profits equally. The only thing we bought separately was our groceries.
Most practical problems also had practical solutions. We’ve been making chore schedules, carpooling, and coming up with dinner schedules – because trying to cook eight girls at once in a tiny kitchen in an alley is a bit challenging.
The harder part was everything we couldn’t put into a spreadsheet.
It wasn’t always fun, but the experience brought us closer together in unexpected ways
I loved being able to share a house with seven of my friends during my senior year of college. Isabella Dallas
Before we all shared a house, I imagined spending every waking moment with my friends. Instead, living together has taught me that sometimes the best thing you can do is give someone space.
Some nights I didn’t feel like socializing; I just wanted to close my bedroom door. However, I learned not to run to my room when I felt frustrated with someone, and instead to have uncomfortable conversations so that little things wouldn’t fester.
And even though it was great to be in close proximity with my best friends, there were still exclusionary issues in the house. Over time, everyone organized themselves into sections, unofficial little boxes of who was closest to whom, and it took effort to keep those sections from growing into something more permanent.
But overall, during our time living together, we stopped being just friends who made plans and became people who knew each other’s bad moods and strange habits. I saw them at their most tired, stressed, and unfiltered.
From going to the beach to hanging out in the kitchen at midnight, we felt more like family than friends. Isabella Dallas
After a while we started to feel less like friends and more like family.
There were midnight kitchen hangouts where we were all somehow in one car Goal runseight different playlists echoing through the hallways as we got ready, and groups in the front yard with romance novels on towels, chairs, and pillows.
Transporting groceries it always ended in a Trader Joe’s taste test somehow, and the nights ended with collective screaming at the TV during “Love Island.”
It’s funny, I couldn’t wait to be by the ocean with my best friends. But in the end, the beach was the least interesting part of that adventure.
