I almost lost my roommate friendship three weeks after moving in.
Not because we argued.
Not because one of us stopped paying rent.
Because I got drunk and accidentally locked him outside our apartment at 2:30 AM.
We had only known each other for about a month.
That night, some coworkers invited us out for drinks. I kept saying I was fine, even though I definitely wasn’t.
When we got home, I somehow managed to get inside, lock the door behind me, and fall asleep on the couch.
My roommate started knocking.
I didn’t hear him.
He called my phone.
I didn’t hear that either.
Eventually, he climbed through the window of our downstairs neighbor’s apartment because he’d left his keys inside.
The next morning, I woke up to find him sitting at the kitchen table, staring at me.
I knew immediately something had happened.
He looked at me and said, “You know I spent forty minutes outside because of you, right?”
I wanted the floor to swallow me.
I apologized about twenty times.
I expected him to tell me we couldn’t live together anymore.
Instead, he started laughing.
Then I started laughing.
We ordered breakfast and spent the whole morning talking about how ridiculous the night had been.
That should’ve been the end of it.
But something changed after that.
We started trusting each other more.