I have lived in “intentional communities” and attest that mature and self capable men and women of all ages can and do live excellently in compact (from [augmented] single home suburban dwellings of a dozen *or more) to ranch style configurations.
It is truly a new level of human excellence. The Epicurean garden of our age.
This has never worked without the WORK involved. People clean, people have a forum for regular discussion, people have responsibilities, and people come and go.
If you want a better life sometimes you have to game up with a better self.
* Once 20 in a single Venice Beach home (close enough to the beach.) there were old VW buses parked in the back yard and rooms with bunks, people paid $400-600/mo. It was wild yet it was civilized. Obviously city shut it down after years working well. It all comes down to good house rule and willful participation.
Aurornis · 9m ago
> It is truly a new level of human excellence. The Epicurean garden of our age.
> This has never worked without the WORK involved. People clean, people have a forum for regular discussion, people have responsibilities, and people come and go.
> If you want a better life sometimes you have to game up with a better self.
I think it’s funny to hear the concept of teaming up with other people, putting in the work, sharing responsibilities, and having discussions among the community unit is described as “a new level of human excellence”
Because this is just describing what it’s like to have a family and a household. Many people do this. A lot of this thread feels like single people reinventing the concept of family to fill a void. That’s fine, of course. The funny part is being it described as a new and novel form of human excellence
danaris · 6m ago
> this is just describing what it’s like to have a family and a household
It's describing what it's like to do so well.
IME, most people do not approach family with sufficient intentionality to achieve what sunscream89 describes. At best, they settle into a comfortable set of unconscious agreements and patterns that work OK for each other. At worst, those patterns cause constant friction that eventually tear them apart—or cause them to go to therapy and start adding intentionality to the relationship(s).
Aurornis · 1m ago
> It's describing what it's like to do so well.
And the comment above is describing the absolute best case communal living arrangement
> IME, most people do not approach family with sufficient intentionality to achieve what sunscream89 describes
In my experience, most roommates don’t do anything even close to what sunscream89 describes.
However most families at least make an attempt be a family, not just roommates.
GregDavidson · 23m ago
I'm a geek and have shared my home with housemates for 50 years. When I was poor and when I was prosperous. When I was married and when I was not. It's almost always been good for me, including for growth in my social intelligence. It was especially valuable when my wife died. Some of my housemates have been challenging. More became close friends. Living together people take their masks off. Quality social connections have been invaluable to me.
deadghost · 2m ago
I generally like having roommates, but when they're bad, they're BAD. I've also never done the communal cooking thing. Either they don't cook, are bad at cooking, or have dubious food hygiene. I haven't met any potential partners through them either. I might take a walk or swim with them but I sure as hell didn't get OP's experience.
derektank · 1h ago
>With six roommates, I would cook a couple dishes a week. Every meal would be multi course, with different people making salad, protein, sides, and maybe mixing up some drinks for the cooks.
I've never split meals with any of my roommates when I had them, and I cringe at the idea of asking them to accommodate my own idiosyncratic tastes. I, naturally, have lived on my own since I could possibly afford it. But I can see why this would be a huge benefit if you are so inclined to shared meal prep.
This article also makes a strong case for repealing laws outlawing SRO buildings, which can be designed to better accommodate shared cooking and socializing spaces than a building of 1 bedroom apartments.
lelandfe · 43m ago
Yeah, if you’ve got really hard opinions about what you like, it might be tough. It might also be a way to expand your palette though? I’m living with a Swiss girl and an Argentinian guy right now and am enjoying the new foods I’m introduced to.
ghaff · 50m ago
In school, with roommates/housemates, we would very seldom do shared meals (where one person basically prepped the meal) and I do pot-lucks with friends today. But it's not the normal thing. People have different schedules and preferences.
Aurornis · 13m ago
The talk about having roommates into your 30s, 40s, and 50s to be able to split the load, avoid loneliness, socialize more, find motivation to do things with others, and have interesting conversations with people in different life situations is all interesting and good. Certainly something a single person should at least consider.
But it also feels funny to read this as a someone with a family at home, because a healthy family home life checks all of these boxes and more. I’m sure someone will come along to comment that not all families are this good at being friendly and splitting the load of cooking and such, but I think you’d find that most roommate situations aren’t splitting the load of cooking and making meals together like this at a much higher rate.
8f2ab37a-ed6c · 32m ago
In the US, is it concerning when a "grown man" in his 30s or 40s and beyond still lives with roommates, when dating and trying to attract a mate? Is there an expectation that you should be displaying a certain lifestyle that will attract a partner, and if you're living with a bunch of roommates, you're failing to do that?
I believe that's not the case in many other countries in the world, but what about the US?
kdamica · 28m ago
Especially in high cost areas like NY or SF, it’s completely normal for adults, even highly successful ones, to have roommates. I personally know plenty of men who had roommates up until they moved in with the person they would end up marrying.
Aurornis · 8m ago
The US is a huge and diverse country. People in it have diverse expectations.
It’s also going to depend on the location. Having roommates in a very high cost city is no big deal at all.
OutOfHere · 29m ago
Absolutely. All else being equal, a man over the age of 30 without his own residence is basically undatable (as per unsaid expectations in the US).
hnthrow90348765 · 22m ago
Treating this as a universal standard of women for men is probably more harmful to anyone's dating chances than having roommates or not.
Jhsto · 7m ago
My personal anecdote is that living with roommates while doing a PhD has been the worst living experience. That is, I'm rather jealous how the author ended up with a functioning setup and I wonder what attributes to this. Sometimes I wonder if the main cause for my challenges is that living with other PhD students is a competitive environment of time (constant prisoner dilemma situations where nobody cooperates to maximize their time to work), or if it's the mix of cultural backgrounds (I don't know how to get them to cooperate).
chistev · 1h ago
No, I prefer living without roommates, if I can afford it. I want my privacy and autonomy.
nixass · 1h ago
Absolutely never again with roommates. None of the "benefits" of having them can justify not living alone if one can afford
4b11b4 · 1h ago
Agree, did that
cpach · 1h ago
I can relate a lot to this. For most of the years between leaving home and meeting my wife I had at least 1 room-mate. I enjoyed it. Living alone is very boring IMHO.
gedy · 15m ago
To each their own, but I wanted nothing MORE than to finally have my own place throughout life (first a bedroom, then a dorm room, then apt). It was a real motivator, and it's not that I didn't have decent relationships with roommates or family.
nytesky · 17m ago
Golden Girls!
nsksl · 1h ago
The case for normalising poverty.
profunctor · 54m ago
Having roommates (aka sharing a home) when you leave your family home has been the norm forever. Roommates are not poverty
nsksl · 48m ago
Buying an old beater car as your first car has been the norm forever. But that’s because young people still have no wealth, ie they are poor, not because they don’t want a shiny Audi.
ramesh31 · 49m ago
>Having roommates (aka sharing a home) when you leave your family home has been the norm forever. Roommates are not poverty
Poverty has been the norm forever. The idea of economic progress for the common person is barely 3 generations old.
danaris · 4m ago
How about "the case for acknowledging the reality that actually exists, rather than trying to pretend it will go away if we ignore it"?
cpach · 59m ago
One could argue that for many people, isolation is a form of poverty.
nsksl · 57m ago
You could argue everything, but I’m pretty sure 99% of those sharing a flat are doing so because they can’t afford a flat for themselves, not because they enjoy the company.
d4mi3n · 44m ago
It can also be a matter of preference. I lived alone after moving away from my family for a few years. For someone working long hours, far from home, with a demanding job, there is a particular kind of loneliness at coming home after dark to a cold, quiet home.
I ended up cohabitating with close friends after that for a solid decade, during which I met my wife who also joined us. It can be a wonderful arrangement if you have the right people and everyone is working to look fatter themselves and each other.
ramesh31 · 1h ago
Women have such different lives. It's things like this that make it so painfully obvious why single men are isolated and alone in modern society.
mock-possum · 48m ago
Could you expand on that a bit? You’re the second comment to say this is about ‘women’ and I don’t get it - what’s different? Whatever you think is ‘painfully obvious’ here is obviously not landing for me, can you spell it out?
derektank · 37m ago
>I missed coming home to postgame my bad dates with my roommates over a cup of tea.
For whatever reason, I think men are a lot less likely to engage in this kind of social behavior, even if they are roommates. They're also a lot less likely to engage in spontaneous dance parties or enjoy group hip hop twerking exercises. Basically, a lot of the benefits of having roommates that the author describes are experienced far less often by men with roommates
ramesh31 · 31m ago
Pretty much. And I'm not even remotely saying it's a good thing. This is one of a myriad reasons men objectively live shorter, less healthy, and lonelier lives. You can speculate a million more reasons as to why, but it's just the reality of life.
micromacrofoot · 1h ago
on the other hand I've yet to meet a woman that punches holes in drywall when they're mad, I've had 2 male roommates that have
bee_rider · 16m ago
Bad male behavior is generally a bit more threatening and unpleasant to be around. But, I’ve also lived with good male friends, and with male strangers that ended up being great.
I mean, we didn’t twerk together. But it was fun to have a guy to plop down on the couch and watch play videogames, talk about Romans with, or whatever other male-coded quirkiness you want to pull up.
We often say “normalize <whatever>” to the point where it has become a bit of a trite phrase. But, there’s a lot of social pressure for men to be isolated. We should normalize living with your bros. It shouldn’t just be the wall-punchers that live together. (I mean, it isn’t).
ramesh31 · 56m ago
>on the other hand I've yet to meet a woman that punches holes in drywall when they're mad, I've had 2 male roommates that have
This is basically my point. Adult women can live together, adult men cannot.
sfilmeyer · 41m ago
I'm a man, and had wonderful experiences with my many (mostly male) roommates, with only occasional hiccups. Saying adult men cannot live together seems pretty excessive.
micromacrofoot · 29m ago
they can but it's inherently riskier, especially with a woman involved
OutOfHere · 58m ago
The article is clearly for a class of women who want to stay single forever, not for men. Most people should be focusing more on having stable relationships with a partner, not into roommates.
mock-possum · 49m ago
Why women? It’s written by a woman, certainly, who does offer the disclaimer,
> I understand not everyone is wired like I am.
Why not men? Why would a man not prefer to live with roommates, to split meals and chores and have easy companionship for a cup of tea and a movie at the end of the day?
On the other hand, why should a man not want to be naked around the house, play trashy music at 7am, and bring someone home for the night without worrying about roommates?
What does men and women have to do with any of this, in other words? You’re the second comment to explicitly mention gender and I do not see the connection.
ipaddr · 35m ago
Women are more likely to pair up for safety and community reasons.
OutOfHere · 34m ago
Women can be more social, whereas men can be more independent, taken to their respective extremes. Men don't like having to explain their behavior to someone, or want to tolerate anyone else's behavior. Being social was cool back in college, but not since past the age of 35.
Men are fighting hard to improve their resumes/businesses/finances/health, and as such their lives, and they don't need or value idle time spent with roommates coming in the way. The role of a provider weighs more heavily on men.
It is truly a new level of human excellence. The Epicurean garden of our age.
This has never worked without the WORK involved. People clean, people have a forum for regular discussion, people have responsibilities, and people come and go.
If you want a better life sometimes you have to game up with a better self.
* Once 20 in a single Venice Beach home (close enough to the beach.) there were old VW buses parked in the back yard and rooms with bunks, people paid $400-600/mo. It was wild yet it was civilized. Obviously city shut it down after years working well. It all comes down to good house rule and willful participation.
> This has never worked without the WORK involved. People clean, people have a forum for regular discussion, people have responsibilities, and people come and go.
> If you want a better life sometimes you have to game up with a better self.
I think it’s funny to hear the concept of teaming up with other people, putting in the work, sharing responsibilities, and having discussions among the community unit is described as “a new level of human excellence”
Because this is just describing what it’s like to have a family and a household. Many people do this. A lot of this thread feels like single people reinventing the concept of family to fill a void. That’s fine, of course. The funny part is being it described as a new and novel form of human excellence
It's describing what it's like to do so well.
IME, most people do not approach family with sufficient intentionality to achieve what sunscream89 describes. At best, they settle into a comfortable set of unconscious agreements and patterns that work OK for each other. At worst, those patterns cause constant friction that eventually tear them apart—or cause them to go to therapy and start adding intentionality to the relationship(s).
And the comment above is describing the absolute best case communal living arrangement
> IME, most people do not approach family with sufficient intentionality to achieve what sunscream89 describes
In my experience, most roommates don’t do anything even close to what sunscream89 describes.
However most families at least make an attempt be a family, not just roommates.
I've never split meals with any of my roommates when I had them, and I cringe at the idea of asking them to accommodate my own idiosyncratic tastes. I, naturally, have lived on my own since I could possibly afford it. But I can see why this would be a huge benefit if you are so inclined to shared meal prep.
This article also makes a strong case for repealing laws outlawing SRO buildings, which can be designed to better accommodate shared cooking and socializing spaces than a building of 1 bedroom apartments.
But it also feels funny to read this as a someone with a family at home, because a healthy family home life checks all of these boxes and more. I’m sure someone will come along to comment that not all families are this good at being friendly and splitting the load of cooking and such, but I think you’d find that most roommate situations aren’t splitting the load of cooking and making meals together like this at a much higher rate.
I believe that's not the case in many other countries in the world, but what about the US?
It’s also going to depend on the location. Having roommates in a very high cost city is no big deal at all.
Poverty has been the norm forever. The idea of economic progress for the common person is barely 3 generations old.
I ended up cohabitating with close friends after that for a solid decade, during which I met my wife who also joined us. It can be a wonderful arrangement if you have the right people and everyone is working to look fatter themselves and each other.
For whatever reason, I think men are a lot less likely to engage in this kind of social behavior, even if they are roommates. They're also a lot less likely to engage in spontaneous dance parties or enjoy group hip hop twerking exercises. Basically, a lot of the benefits of having roommates that the author describes are experienced far less often by men with roommates
I mean, we didn’t twerk together. But it was fun to have a guy to plop down on the couch and watch play videogames, talk about Romans with, or whatever other male-coded quirkiness you want to pull up.
We often say “normalize <whatever>” to the point where it has become a bit of a trite phrase. But, there’s a lot of social pressure for men to be isolated. We should normalize living with your bros. It shouldn’t just be the wall-punchers that live together. (I mean, it isn’t).
This is basically my point. Adult women can live together, adult men cannot.
> I understand not everyone is wired like I am.
Why not men? Why would a man not prefer to live with roommates, to split meals and chores and have easy companionship for a cup of tea and a movie at the end of the day?
On the other hand, why should a man not want to be naked around the house, play trashy music at 7am, and bring someone home for the night without worrying about roommates?
What does men and women have to do with any of this, in other words? You’re the second comment to explicitly mention gender and I do not see the connection.
Men are fighting hard to improve their resumes/businesses/finances/health, and as such their lives, and they don't need or value idle time spent with roommates coming in the way. The role of a provider weighs more heavily on men.