Room sharing with opposite gender

What are the points to consider before accepting such an offer?

What are the negatives and Positives?

What about Shopping, food bills, washing and cleaning?

Any other issues?

Thanks!

Since moving out on my own, I have only had male roommates (i.e. my first husband, my best friend while in Atlanta, and my fiance now). I must say that I find living with a man quite nice, but I think it is more about personalities rather than gender. I won't generalize things by saying that women tend to clean up and wash the laundry more than men and things such as that. My one word of advice would be to be careful of rooming with someone that you might find yourself attracted to (if purely a roommate situation and not a relationship). I've seen roommate situations go quickly down hill and end very nastily when unrequited feelings are involved.

I share with 2 girls(hehehe) , the only thing that has to be considered in a flatshare is respecting each others space & privacy. Simple as that.

Edit: I actually share with Sk8rgrl & Crawlie and we get along fine.

As for Shopping, I go to Tenglemanns, Crawlie & Sk8rgrl do too, but they sometimes got to Mini Mal. Food Bills, I pay at the counter with an EC card or cash if I have it. I dont know how they pay.

Good point Mr Lions. I generally pay with EC Card although I have paid in cash if I happen to have enough or the amount of the shop is pretty low. Tenglemanns is good as it is on my way home from the U-Bahn although the selection can be somewhat limited IMHO.

I like Mini Mal as the selection is somewhat better. For a treat every now and then I go to Karstadt and buy a good bottle of wine at the same time. All take EC Cards and cash so it your choice really...

I would think that you would work out all the details around bills and housekeeping *before* going into any shared housing situation, regardless of gender.

I think the key thing is to realise ahead of time that theres a subtle but important difference (IMHO) between being roommates and renting a space from someone. Roommate situations tend to be more friendly, its not that big of a deal for example, if you take the last soda as long as you replace it. Renting space on the other hand is more transactional. This person is your landlord, not your friend. You leave their things alone and vice versa. You should pre-determine ground rules for everthing including acceptable noise levels (tv, stereo), if they have any cooking issues (on TTer had a neighbor complaining about cooking smells), and rules on having people over. If they have people over for dinner, your not invited unless, well your specifically invited and vice versa.

PS: In either situation, definitely settle any out of town visitor issues, so that you know ahead of time if and for how long your wife and two kids back in India are welcome to visit, and how much more in terms of bills you should pay during their stay as 3 additional people eat up a lot of space, water, and electricity.

I share my flat with someone of the opposite gender. It works well so far, although my current faltmate has been there for a few weeks, so see how things work out. She is free to use any room in the flat (apart from my bedroom) but mainly sticks to her room when she is there.

Food, we each buy our own. She pays a fixed amount for the room which includes all bills including internet but excluding telephone calls. She is welcome to have anyone over anytime, just no parties on a school night.

I can't think of any problems that would be gender specific.

have shared with a fair few different people over the course of the last 20 years, both male and female

found that the only real problems, if any, always centred around the telephone bill, although with itemised billing that is now far easier to resolve

only gender issues are, as previously posted, if unrequited lust rears it's head ( no pun intended )

haven't shared a place with someone I am emotionally not involved with since my hippie days when bunch of us guys and girls shared a big house back in Michigan. Since our lifestyle was different, our rules were different. Well, we actually had no rules so they are not applicable to your situation. Good luck.

Thanks everyone for your inputs. Let me see how things work out.

I lived in a hippie commune as well.

We shared everything, no one had their "own" food or toiletries, we did each others laundry, if one of us had money and the others didn't we'd pay for them. Sometimes even slept in each others beds when we were feeling down. Surprisingly it worked out really well, to day this day they remain my best friends.