roommate research results

These are our roommate research results that are not city-specific, but gathered from our long-running roomiematch.com roommate questionnaire, and our newer post-roommate research, and the subscriber (submittable personalizable form) version of our roommate roadmap.

All three.

Our standards require our research results report similarly across all three areas described above. Clear majority means > 2/3 or 66% of roommates reporting. Vast majority means > 9/10 or 90% of roommates reporting. If all three don't correlate that well, it's not a result.

As two areas are significantly newer, updates will be ongoing and evolving right here. As we continue researching, previous findings will remain as long as they remain true, but newer or different stuff with at least a clear majority will be reported as well.

We should mention when we say "previous outcomes" or "positive or negative results," etc., reported post-roommate, we don't always mean post-roommate obtained from roomiematch.com, we mean post-roommate obtained from anywhere, including entirely offline even!

(We're not requiring all participants share everywhere they obtained their various roommates, but anecdotally speaking many are sharing via freetext areas and it is already various.)

. . .

AGE vs. happiness

Males in the 18-28 age range who report multiple previous roommates report the least positive roommate outcomes overall.

A clear majority report positive expectations at the outset that turned negative sometime during, causing revision in their "average expectations" of roommates, often distressingly.

But meanwhile, both males and females > 50 report positive roommate outcomes for the last decade or longer, with an ongoing vigilance against negative outcomes. A clear majority feel their vigilance yields positive results.

A clear majority report greater specificity regarding roommate needs along with getting older. More specific doesn't always mean less flexible, but more specific about what is and is not important to them, predictively speaking. This is meaningfully different from unconditional positive expectations for roommates randomly selected.

Most report vigilance and increasing wisdom as beneficial, but minority exceptions were mostly those who did not experience roommates until they were > 50.

First roommate outcome was negative at age > 50 are also most likely to reject the possibility of roommates in their future out of reported fear of another negative outcome . . . but if they move past their ambivalence they subsequently tend to report subsequent outcomes approximately as positive as everyone else > 50.

SO: That's the data. We'd say the essence = roommate optimism = warranted across all age ranges . . . just all too often not unconditional optimism.

Leave unconditional optimism in your extreme youth without replacing it with pessimism, but cautious optimism instead.

Trust, but verify.

. . .

SCAMS vs. demographics

Accidentally spending online time (if not money) with an internet roommate scam is unfortunately NOT a problem now limited to the elderly and/or less educated as many have asked . . . some members of all demographic groups we survey report recent or relatively recent experience with roommate scams.

However, we're ambivalently pleased to report a clear majority of scam reports no longer entirely or primarily feature email. Many now involve some form of social media or instant messaging bot misrepresenting as human.

But same as it ever was, most scams reported involve insistence on hundreds of dollars somehow spent and/or sent prior to anybody meeting in person, in real life.

Meanwhile: It's prudent and usually successful to look for roommates in advance of travel and collect important info over the internet before showing up IRL. More convenient, saves time, can be safer as well. So do that absolutely, that's great!

But human roommates will want to meet you IRL, probably at a local casual public place first, later the roommate location, once everyone's comfortable.

And human roommates will want to start as soon as geographically possible.

Again, after everyone's comfortable!

But after everyone IS, then human roommates will want to pedal faster to conclude this particular roommate selection portion of all y'all's collective lives.

Bot roommates obviously cannot meet you IRL.

(Yes, that sounds like we're almost insulting your intelligence with our obviousness. And yet, victims are still getting victimized out there.)

SO: Please remember, no matter how appealing a roommate might seem entirely online, human roommates want to meet you IRL, bot roommates cannot. We know, you knew already! Just don't forget!

. . .

CLOTHING vs. schedules

The vast majority of roommates who reported sharing clothing also reported that two or more became upset over one or more damaged items. Many emphasized it was not merely the replacement value of the item itself (when that was a factor) but that the damage upset them emotionally as well.

Anecdotally but it's already a crowd, especially in the cities you'd imagine: Some households form around fashion, dressmaking, clothing trendsetting, modeling, event photography, etc. If that's the case for you and your roommates, you'll share clothing well because that's what you already want to do vocationally plus recreationally most days anyway?

And from what we hear, you're usually having a lot of fun doing exactly that!

But just with your own fashion-forward roommates, not the general public. Usually.

If you're somebody else just getting dressed most mornings, you probably expect:

• your clothing to remain accessible in the same condition in which you left it
• if getting ready to go wherever takes significantly longer than you expected due to abject failure of that first thing, you're upset now
• possible additional upset due to emotional attachment and/or fear of financial loss represented by lost but not replaced item, but almost always those first two, almost unavoidably

SO: You probably do not want to share clothing with your roommates. If you're not crystal clear that sharing clothing with fashion-forward roommates would absolutely be a lot of fun for you . . . it probably won't be!

Instead, it'll probably be awful!

But if you're crystal clear otherwise, go for it!

. . .

MALE & FEMALE ROOMMATES vs. complaints

We decided to put this one on its own page to point at it specifically.

. . .

(Additional findings will appear on this page in the future, but for now, please scroll up.)