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 after themselves and each other.
My three daughters are grown and have moved out and now I live alone in a four bedroom house.
Between work (in office mon-thurs, wfh fridays), my volunteer (fire department and watershed steward), fitness (yoga and lifting), and social club (amateur radio, astronomy, and makerspace) commitments, and my girlfriend (smart and beautiful)-- the 1-3 nights per week I get to come home and sit alone, in the dark, in my underwear, listening to the worst 90s techno ever produced at full volume are the only times I have to relax.
As an added bonus when you live alone you can accomplish many things that would be difficult and/or very costly with roommates. Very few people want to live in chaos for months as you methodically open up each wall in your 70-year-old house to run CAT6/HDMI/speaker wires in every room by working an hour or so during your precious few free nights and weekends.
(in my underwear, while listening to the worst 90s techno ever at full volume)
Poverty has been the norm forever. The idea of economic progress for the common person is barely 3 generations old.
This is basically my point. Adult women can live together, adult men cannot.
Plus, I know you probably don’t mean it this way, but - your phrasing basically invalidates every same-sex partnership. Again, here I have spent the last ten years living with my partner, and we are both of us adult men. Clearly adult men can live together.
I think that maybe you just need to meet better men - your beliefs about gender stink.
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).
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’ve always been a primarily homosocial guy, and I’ve never felt like I was lacking any of this stuff. Whether it’s someone to play videogames with, someone to cook dinner for, someone to cuddle with, someone to rant to, someone to debate or deliberate or just discuss - I’ve always had male friends close to me who care about me, who listen to me, and for whom I try my best to return the favour, when it comes around.
As a matter of fact I haven’t found my female friends to be any better at any of that than my male friends - and a couple of my best friends in particular are women.
Maybe I’m just lucky? Maybe other men are just doing it wrong?
I really do find the more I’ve grown up, the less I have any use or respect for all this traditional gender stuff. Why are we still pretending it’s valid? Why don’t we just grow out of it already?
Whether men just sitting down and talking openly about their feelings comes from the “men should be more sensitive and willing to share their feelings with others” take or the “bbq and beers with the boys in the backyard” take, the same point stands regardless.
Like, guys in a group relaxing over beers or bbq and just talking about their feelings (just without using this specific terminology) has been a thing since forever ago in the US. I cannot speak for all countries ever, but in Russia (since before soviet union even existed), sauna+alcohol after+snacks along with the boys just talking about anything weighing on their mind has been a thing too. From what I know about ancient Greece, they had an equivalent of it as well.
Regional/cultural equivalents aside, this seems like a somewhat common experience/ behavior across time, and painting it as some new thing that comes from the same place as “it is so cool and progressive for men to be into group twerking exercises” is disingenuous.
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.
That's only a benefit if you're interested in variety. For a lot of people, their idiosyncratic tastes are things they _don't_ like.
I'm sure in an ideal world you could get past that problem by talking and having everybody else compile a mental list of what meals aren't going to be on the menu, but the more realistic outcome for someone like me is the food only being edible for me 1 or maybe 2 days a week, not to mention that I'll probably come of as an knobhead for not liking their food and making my own, and them probably not liking my food when it's my turn to prepare. It's a manageable situation for a couple of days or say a week, especially since everybody else is probably more willing to accommodate if they only have to do it for a short while, but I would never want to deal with that even semi-permanently.
> 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.
I'm a man, and as I get older I feel like the idea of men having to be less social and aggressive (e.g. the part about not tolerating stuff - or the opposite idea that women are fine with suffering in silence while someone has poor behavior instead of speaking up) harms us.
i left europe because of this nonsense. other cultures are way more tolerant. in china complaining about someone else is practically an insult. of course the downside is that when you have problems in your family, nobody wants to get involved because they feel it's not appropriate.
That's a gross misrepresentation.
Regarding aggression, in one's home, one doesn't want to and shouldn't have to explain things to others. One is supposed to be the king (or queen) of their home.
As for being social, sociologically speaking, men work to connect communities they don't belong to, whereas women connect the community they belong to.
Lastly, no, women do not suffer in silence. They are extremely vocal, often a lot more than men.
Please familiarize yourself with the comments policies at https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html given that your comment being in violation of several of the listed policies.
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 have a large family, this is nothing like even a functional family. Nothing.
I have lived in over three intentional communities (some others were too casual). From elaborate roommate situations to full on company town.
Working and living together in the “Epicurean dream” is intentional community, one lost to main stream awareness. And that is a form of excellent living!
I guess there are those who find living and working for others the natural way, and those who would live and work for themselves (as a community).
Actually, not at all. A co-living arrangement of adults (or WG for Wohngemeinschaft, as we call it in Germany) is not well advised to work like a family household. A family has someone being the father, someone else being the mother and then there are children. While some WGs might stabilize into such a pattern for a while, it is certainly doomed to fail and end in drama. It's more like a team at work - which infamously isn't a family either.
My task was to carry water so that it could later be heated for drinking/bathing (sponge-bathing really).
The location and (lack of) amenities served as a filter, so it's not something I think could be easily reproducible.
Location for this was everything. Live like a well stocked savage in a pristine removed wonder of the world.
Community was around for so long there were prepper’s stocks spanning decades.
Btw, MREs do die. And they’re nothing worth living on.
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.
These conversations about how men have to change themselves in order to find a partner are funny to me, because the subtext is that partnering up is the most important thing you can achieve, and you should sacrifice your other interests in order to make yourself marketable to the largest pool of people, so you can find a partner as soon as possible. People mock the phrase "just be yourself" because there are some things (money, physical beauty) that most people are looking for, and if you achieve them it's easier to find a partner. But the flip side is, unless you enjoy putting in all the work to be rich and beautiful, having a partner won't make you happy. The phrase "just be yourself" is really saying that you shouldn't change yourself just to find a partner, because it will be a phyrric victory. Instead, you should be yourself, do the things that make you happy, and let that filter out all the people who would only be interested in your money or your beauty. (and to be clear, this is not an argument against self improvement - you should still seek to better yourself)
Of course, you could be the financially irresponsible roommate, but I think your date can figure this out quite rapidly then, based on how much your roommates will hate you ;)
Most women might be fine with this arrangement while casually dating in younger years but I have yet to see anyone being at ease in this situation.
Don't forget that we are talking about 30+ years old, at this age most people are looking for something stable, of course you can always find exceptions but your available pool of candidates shrinks.
This type of shared apartments also have the effect of creating a sort of microcosm of people thinking alike on this specific topic. You tend to get to know other such shared apartments. This changes drastically the odds of finding partner ok with this arrangement.
Source: I lived 5 years in different such shared apartments, the microcosm effect really was insane, I automatically got to know the friends of my roommates, half of whom lived in a shared apartment, then I got to know their roommates, etc. 3 of my relationships started because of this network.
If you live in a shithole by yourself obviously that's not going to be attractive
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.
My own experience is that when I had roommates they would invite people over or invite me to activities where I'd meet new people with very little effort on my part. Vs when I've lived alone it felt less far less likely to meet new people without more effort.
But then again, I always realize how far civilization has come when I enter a public toilet: not far at all.
I look around my messy apartment and realize I'd also be a not-great flatmate.
But living with a group of people sounds like hell to me. When I go home, I want to be alone and relax. I don't want to deal with other people's shit, and I don't want to bother them with mine.
It's so unappealling to me, I would live out of my car before I gave in and tried living with roommates.
I loved it personally, I made amazing connections, I couldn’t get enough of it. Couldn’t figure out a way to have kids and stay in a shared apartment unfortunately, although I know it’s possible. so that phase of my life is over – and I miss it.
But it’s a matter of personal preference for sure.
I see a lot of comments here along the lines of "I prefer to live alone because roommates are a pain in the ass", but I think there might be a lot of value to doing this because it's good for you. Living with other people forces us to corral our worst tendencies, to break out of virtual worlds to engage in the real one, to form bonds that will force us to grow and change.
I think it's strange that our preference in this area, but not many others, could be so dominant over what is good for us.
I used to live in a flat with one flatmate who changed every half a year or so because they were usually interns. Never knew them before they moved in but 90% of the time we became friends. I liked that they changed after a while so I was never stuck with a bad roomate.
I don't recommend the other way around. If you have a good friend it's more likely to notice their annoying habits so there is little upside but in a worse case you can damage the friendship.
if your friendship can't survive that, it wasn't a good friendship to begin with.
People don't need to be forced by the environment. They can strike healthy balances on their own.
You can have a social life without having roommates and you'll likely end up living with your romantic partner after spending some time dating them or multiple people until you find the one you move with.
Living alone will definitely help with the privacy and ease of bringing people you're dating to your place for private time.
Basically: a team of researchers asked people if they'd be happier on their morning commute if they interacted with strangers or kept to themselves. Most said they'd be happier keeping to themselves. Then the researchers ran an experiment where a group were told to keep to themselves, a group was told to interact with a stranger for as long as possible, and a control group was supposed to do whatever came up. Those who were forced to interact with a stranger came away most happy, and those that kept to themselves were least happy.
We are social beings - it is how we have been able to survive as a species. And yet, given the choice, we often choose to isolate. I think people would be happier and healthier if we made more of an effort to combat that tendency.
When housemates go from single to partnered, it's an unsolvable conflict because housemates are not the priority and the partner is mostly unwanted in the house.
If you as a single person join a house with committed partners, you'll forever have to accept what they want.
When people disagree, the stakes of one's living space is typically higher than the problem, which the aggressive are happy to hostage to get what they want.
Housemates learn a lot about you that you don't really want to be public, but they're not committed to keeping your secrets and might even use them against you.
Housemates can start depending on you emotionally.
Having friendly housemates can reduce the pressure to find a partner, precisely when othees are partnering. Your choices only get more narrow from delaying.
Long-term living together requires commitment, mutual respect, and effective governance that can't be abused. All that is quite the opposite from the usual drivers: convenience, shared cost, and lightweight human contact.
Worse, shared housing is always better and cheaper than buying, so after decades of living well you'll still be a renter (unable to control your destiny) rather than an owner.
You might think you'll share for temporary situations, but not make it a lifestyle. But the more you get used to it, the less tolerance you'll have for the sacrifices necessary for a committed partner and home equity.
What would your future self want you to do?
I’ve lived in SF (communally) for about 10 years now. The first 5 years I lived here help me build up my savings, and then a housemate, my wife, and I bought a building in the city that now houses 8 adults. I definitely could not have afforded this paying for a one bedroom in the city, and living with roommates meant I had lots of time to find people who would be willing to go in on a house with me!
But even if this weren’t the case, over 5 years we probably saved ~200k in rent. Putting that into the stock market would typically yield much better returns than owning a home (which is typically a wash after mortgage interest is factored in).
This is what happens when you use Google for recipes. And a good hint that this article does not represent the average demographic; most people outside of her's do not want room mates good reason.
Come to think of it actually, I’ve never formed very strong bonds without anyone outside of childhood who I didn’t live with.
I remember hearing years ago that the ingredients for a strong friendship are (1) serendipitous, unplanned encounters, (2) vulnerability, (3) sustained time spent together. Housemates seem like the only modern avenue to this for adults.
Critical caveat is having the temple of my own room to retreat to.
With that, I love having housemates.
The ingredients for a strong friendship are doing things together without forcing it and contact surviving when things change (e.g. geographical move, shared activity ending, family change).
The fact that you needed such a constant school like, unavoidable presence speaks to your own lack of sustained activities and communication in other areas. You haven't made friends through sports, hobbies, shared courses or even work? Only by 24/7 living with them?
You may want to change that. It may seem like it requires more effort at first but it's not that different and lasts beyond the see each other every day phase.
You said "doing things together without forcing it" is important. That's precisely what I mean with housemates. In the storm of people's busy lives and moods, living with someone just provides so much more effortless surface area for bonding than pre-arranged, formal events to do sports or a hobby.
I think a larger house like she's living in makes it a lot easier to mitigate "the bad room mate" problem mentioned in a lot of comments. They likely have some filtering and process to kick someone out if they turn out weird. And recruitment is hopefully easier if you have 4 other people looking for a 5th than posting an ad somewhere.
This does seem like a potential solution for the male loneliness epidemic. I think it would be harder to check out if you're around other people. Their house seems _very_ women-styled with cooking dance parties, twerking in the garden and the ingredients. But that's just one house, each house has their own style.
Before I met my partner I looked into communal living spaces, and if this doesn't work out I might do so again, and give it a shot. I don't think living on my own is good for me long term. I get too isolated.
I wanted to note that a lot of houses I've lived in have had couples. Two of our housemates in PR were a married couple who rented out the apartment they owned to come live with us. The husband was more extroverted than the wife and loved the company - and the wife loved that we kept him entertained and she got the room to herself more often :)
All this to say I simply think it's great to live with (good) roommates, whether you're male, female, single, coupled, or anything else.
So much of this experience comes down to who you end up living with. I've been lucky to live with friends with fairly similar interests and career drives where it matters, and that changes the experience. If you enjoy the people you live with outside of just the fact you're living together, it changes everything.
If you have those things you get to live with people whom you enjoy their company, talk about topics, do activities together, build further relationships with others and benefit financially from shared costs that can help you build a future.
Absolutely you will need to be able to share and cohabit which can be more challenging as you grow up wanting your own space.
chistev•6mo ago