Moving Again - New Home, New Friends

I will be moving into my third apartment in that many years this weekend. As a single college student, I do the whole roommate thing for housing and once again for the third time I will be changing roommates.

I had always heard people say “Don’t live with your friends. You’ll hate them,” but I never believed it was true. My first year of college I lived in the dorms and had a randomly selected roommate. Her name was Liz. She was a little bit odd, what I would call a little bit gothic but we got along fine. We didn’t hang out much, but we co-existed just fine. The year went by without any problems or major fights. We both moved and I haven’t talked to her since.

My sophomore year of college I lived with a girl I had met during my freshman year. We weren’t really friends but we knew each other and talked somewhat often and felt like we had a lot in common. We signed a lease and moved in together. This was the worst roommate situation I had ever had. This girl who seemed super cool was actually a bitch in disguise. She would move my crap, tell me and my friends we were being too loud (even on weekend nights she went to bed super early), and claimed the covered spot “her spot” in the wintertime when it would snow. By this time, she was on my most hated list. When it came time to look for a place for the next year, I couldn’t believe she had the nerve to ask me if we were still living together. HELL NO.

So by this time my best friend was transferring to my school so her, my best friend from school, and I chose to move in together. We thought it’d be great. We hang out all the time anyways. Why wouldn’t we get along? We would never hate each other…WRONG! It’s not that we by any means hate each other. We are all still friends; it’s just that living together means that you are together 24/7, dealing with each other when they’re grouchy, moody, sad, whatever. We were going out together, staying home together, watching t.v. together, eating together, everything. It was too much. We started going on own ways and our friendship was seriously stressed. When it came time to resign the lease, we all opted to do our own thing.

Now I am moving in with new friends in a new place hoping that it won’t ring true again not to live with your friends or you’ll hate them. I am really excited about my new place and looking forward to a duplex instead of an apartment in more of a party area. I am good friends with one of my future roommates but I am just getting to know the other one. I feel like we’re all going to get along great.
So tell me do you think I’m just being optimistic in hoping that my new roommates and me get along well when it hasn’t been that way in the past? What advice do you have to make sure that we don’t end up at each other’s throat? And on another note, there are 3 rooms: one with its own bathroom, one big one, and one small one. How can I rig it so that I don’t get stuck with the little one???