Part of the "housing crisis" is older Americans aging-in-place and using way more home than they need too. A widow/er might occupy the same suburban single family home in retirement that could house 5 people.
40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households
61–70 of 116 posts
Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
They might have one question: “How much is the rent and when can I move in?”
If you just murdered your roommate, I'm not sure I'm in a rush to become your next roommate...
That just adds to the joke.
Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is the number of people who ‘surprise’ you with out of control behaviors that are a huge issue with room mates. And getting out of living situation with someone like that can be extremely difficult. People can seem perfectly fine, until they seem to spontaneously turn into hoarders, or start eating all your food and lying about it, or start being aggressively in your face about a bunch of antagonistic cultu…
There’s definitely some risk, but the alternative is not a panacea either (high rents, loneliness). You can also get closer to people and enrich your life, and it’s positive to practice tolerance for the behaviours of others (within reason). It’s possible there are more unhinged people today, but I think that’s also a consequence of us spending so much time alone in the first place (and sycophantic bots are only goin…
Except for a very, very small number of people, everyone I've ever known who can afford to not have room mates - doesn't have room mates. Young or old.
There is a reason for this, and it isn't because they hate their mental health.
The issue here is how hard it is to protect your own mental health when someone else refuses to respect yours, and how a co-living situation can make that hard - because you literally are all up in each others business.
Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah in my country people leave their parents house in their early 20s. Independence and individuality are the foundational bedrock of my culture. But it's getting harder because of the housing market.
> Independence and individuality Neither are threatened by living with a friend or someone else near your age. Sure, move out of your parents’ home, but that doesn’t mean you have to live alone .
> Neither are threatened by living with a friend or someone else near your age
The difference between sharing a 2BR and living in an apartment building are more exercises in cultural than physical difference.
Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably most of all the increase of the age of marriage
Which I think is a secondary effect of many other things happening; staying in school for longer, much higher cost of living, cultural shifts like being more aware of what is normal and acceptable in a relationship, etc. It's not unusual for people to be in their 30's before finally having some (financial, etc) breathing room to even consider things like marriage / kids.
Also, but I think that most of all there used to be pressure to get married early
Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Living close to friends and having a community that knows/supports each other helps a lot but living with friends is a good way to end up with less friends. Someone you can stand being around all day is very different than someone you really enjoy spending a few hours a month with.
> Someone you can stand being around all day is very different than someone you really enjoy spending a few hours a month with One is a friend. The other an acquaintance.
Nah, the differences that can make for a dynamic friendship can be the ones that prevent cohabitation. If you're friends you don't have to care that they like to play loud music at 2 am, but you do when you live together.
I have/had friends whose pickiness/slovenliness was fine until we tried to live together, and then all that became a personality clash. It's entirely possible to have strong friendships with people you couldn't live with.
Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
The issue is the number of people who ‘surprise’ you with out of control behaviors that are a huge issue with room mates. And getting out of living situation with someone like that can be extremely difficult. People can seem perfectly fine, until they seem to spontaneously turn into hoarders, or start eating all your food and lying about it, or start being aggressively in your face about a bunch of antagonistic cultu…
It’s something europeans don’t yet understand, that “diversity” has utterly destroyed community, trust, and tranquility in the US; mostly because it has been forced upon people against their will in direct contradiction of the core tenets of the Constitution and founding principles of America. I realize hearing that or seeing that others may read that, may anger people who are deeply invested in the fraud that divers…
What is this legitimate research you speak of? Will you please provide sources?
Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households
#68Even as new homes are much bigger than decades past…
Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households
#69[deleted]
Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Unrealistic expectations from women And men too... lots of them stay adolescent well into their 30s and require a caregiver or a substitute mom more than a gf/wife. Men exclusively blaming women for their problems tend to be basement dwellers or other kind of failures who don't want to take any responsibility
> lots of them stay adolescent well into their 30s and require a caregiver or a substitute mom more than a gf/wife What do you actually mean by this part?
They need someone to cook their meals, clean their bedroom, &c. while they spend their whole day on low life activities, they want to be 16 forever and live like when they had a mom to take care of the "annoying" things.
I know people my age (30+) who spend 8 hours a day gaming and the rest of their free time collecting pokemon cards, funkopops, scifi books they never read and have the audacity to complain about women not being """traditional""" anymore. They're basically out of shape teenagers with money, and they don't understand why it's not attractive. Some of them actually do live with their parents.