4 Ways To Have a Roommate Relationship like Dale and Rusty

By Allie Mitchell on December 19, 2016

When it comes to roommates, having a good one is the hardest part. You can have a roommate you love and they are absolutely perfect, but you can also have a roommate you don’t really like but they can still be a decent person to live with despite some things.

On the other hand, there are just people you can absolutely not live with under any circumstances. When you get a spontaneous roommate like most do in college or like most do when they put on new roommate ads, you hope for the best and that that person will be decent to live with, but they could also potentially become your new best friend.

When TV and movies come into play, we all tend to have these expectations for our roommates. We want to go on adventures with them and have so many stories to tell between the two of you, people are surprised you ever lived without each other. In television we have roommate ideals that we want to make into real life situations, but we don’t know how to attain these ideals for ourselves.

Not everyone’s road to friendship is the same and not every friendship is rainbows and unicorns. Friends go through trials and tribulations just like every single normal human relationship. Although, when you decide to live with someone the trials and tribulations start to seem like the world is ending since you have to eventually confront that person, seeing as they pay half of the rent. You want to strive to have the best relationship possible for the time being, and if you already have a good relationship, you should hope to build on that and always make it better.

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People idolize the relationship between famous roommates like Joey and Chandler and Jess and her gang of merry men, but what about the low-key roommates that show very good dynamic and lots of ups and downs in a little show called Greek. I’m talking about Rusty and Dale: the two main nerds of the show that always seem to have each other’s backs even though it may not seem like they are friends at heart.

What I loved most about them was that they weren’t all cute friendship like all the time; they had dynamic to their relationship. They were at war a lot because they were both fighting to be at the top of their class, but despite all odds they were there for each other when the other really needed it. They gave advice to each other no matter how harsh and they were never fake towards one another, which makes a good friendship and a good roommate dynamic work in the long run.

Here is how their relationship can be emulated.

1. Healthy Competition: Just like keeping a romance alive is always necessary, making sure your friendship isn’t dying is a must as well. Bring on some healthy competitions with each other, like how Rusty and Dale had their academics as a way to both keep them talking and to keep their grades up. They found it fun and of course exhausting, but their friendship was never a dull one.

2. Honesty: Always tell it like it is. Be gentle, but don’t hold back if it’s necessary. Sometimes you may know situations better than they do and they need to hear it from a thoughtful person of sound mind. Dale always spoke his mind; sometimes it wasn’t needed, but Rusty always stood there and let him speak. Most times what he said came back later and was useful.

3. Time: Making sure to include your friends in the things you do is a must. Especially if you two like to do different things. Rusty wanted to join a frat and party, whereas Dale wanted to do robotics and science things. They were on total different agendas, but somehow made it work for both of them. Rusty still maintained a presence in the science community while Dale attended a few things with Rusty.

4. Relationships: Sometimes, your friend will get into a relationship and not have much time for you. This doesn’t mean that they don’t like you or want to hang out with you, but they may want to investigate this relationship a bit more, which means less time with you. When Rusty started dating Jen and Jordan, Dale felt left out and like he was losing his friend. You don’t want to do that to someone you consider a friend, so do what Rusty did and make time for both. Time management is a good skill to learn regardless.

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Whether you choose Dale and Rusty or Joey and Chandler, the possible list of TV roommate pairs to model is endless. You choose who you want to emulate, but in the end you have to figure out what type of dynamic works best for you.

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