I, of course, like spending time with my friends, but getting older and wiser I am trying to do what’s best for me, and I have figured out that going out with my roommate is much better than doing it with just a friend. I’m not talking about the fun side here, it’s all purely practical: When you are going out with a friend you are basically responsible for yourself, but when your roommate is beside you, you feel (at least I do) like it is your mom’s younger and cooler version (sorry, mom).

My roommate is the best wingwoman (is there even such a thing as a wingwoman?) in the world! She keeps hoping that I’ll meet my prince charming, so she is always on the lookout for me. She scares me sometimes with her almost computerized skill to scan the room in search of a potential boyfriend. It’s like, we would be drinking and talking, and she would appear really engaged in the conversation and then: “So I told Katelyn that we should ask for Friday off this week since there are only two of us showing up in the office anyway… Have you seen that cute guy with the beard over there? With the beard… WITH THE BEARD! He keeps looking at you so intensely…No, not that one! He has a ring on… omg, don’t turn like this, you are so obvious!..”

It’s ok for us to pay for one another when we go out because there is always an unpaid balance fluctuating between two of us. Let’s say I paid our electric bill and she ended up owing me certain amount of money, then we went grocery shopping together and she paid for our groceries, but the amount she has paid is slightly bigger than what she gave me, so now I owe her, and so on.

I am not afraid of getting tipsy (read: wasted) because I know that my body will be safely delivered home and placed into my bed. I can even hope to be woken up next morning, if she doesn’t oversleep herself.

Being on a neutral territory helps us to ease the tension and discuss the issues we might be having with each other. I don’t know why is it like that, but things apear much simpler and less significant in the darkness of a bar.

It’s always an adventure going out with her, because we have completely different interests and outlook on life, so spending time together outside of our apartment is like introducing one another to our private worlds. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but it’s never boring.

And one more thing that made me really fall in love with my roommate: she has taught me one really cool russian anti-hangover trick: activated charcoal+pickle juice, that once had saved my life and my career. That is the debt I can never be repaid…