I live in a city with very difficult (and expensive) rent situation. I rent an apartment and I have some loans to pay off. To share the costs (and to make some profit), I decided to look for a roommate. I decided to maintain a professional relationship as I don't wanted to concede upon the terms of living together that we had agreed upon.
The person was very friendly, I responded in a friendly way. And I thought that we could be friends. But, being a landlord, I have to enforce certain rules and I don't want to be at a losing on the terms that I had agreed with him before.
I am finding hard to straddle between professional relationships and friendships. Is it a good idea to mix professional relationship with other kinds of relationships? Is it ever possible to have more than professional relationship? If yes, how can I achieve it?
Basically, I am doing business with someone and making a profit, can I still be friends with them?
Adding more context:
In the beginning, the person did many friendly gesture, like offered some nice food that he had cooked, took initiatives to clean the bathroom (better than I had expected), offered to watch movies together. So, several instances of activities that people would do together as friends.
At the beginning, we had agreed upon certain rules of living together. He followed them all, but eventually I observed that he started flouting those rules a bit, after I had reciprocated his friendly behavior.
He asked for lesser rent and more favorable terms for him (than what was negotiated before). I am feeling that I am having difficulty denying him those favors, even though it is diverging from what we had negotiated.
Overall I think he is a good person, and I might not find another person (as a roommate) who is as good as him. So, I could not deny him lesser rent (it's still more than 50% of the actual rent that I pay) even though, I feel the original terms were better for me.
So, now I am regretting that I should have maintained strictly professional relationship with my roommate. But, I am not sure, if it's the right thing to do.