40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households • Hacker News Board

Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households

#71

Post by mindslight » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 4:02 PM UTC

hopelite wrote: post #38

lazide wrote: post #11

Earlier 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…

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If this is true, then why does it seem like the places with the least diversity are full of people Hell-bent on directly destroying the country?

There's some truth in what you're saying regarding social cohesion, but you're skipping some very important steps like the media fanning reactionary flames by scaring rural dwellers that "diversity" is going to come for them, etc.

Meanwhile people who are confronted with actual diversity in their day to day lives are less likely to buy into such simplistic and destructive narratives in the first place.

This implies that the lack of social cohesion is better thought of as a result of hostile media convincing everyone they are under attack by some "other", than slightly different humans in people's real-life communities.

Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households

#72

Post by latexr » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 4:14 PM UTC

lazide wrote: post #63

latexr wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> and it isn't because they hate their mental health.

No, of course not. But that doesn’t also mean it can’t have an effect. Social media is harmful to many of us who still partake. Sometimes what we do isn’t what’s best. Some of those people who live alone could benefit from living with someone else, others might not. It’s not an absolute, just worth considering.

> The issue here is how hard it is to protect your own mental health when someone else refuses to respect yours

Right, but I feel too many people are focusing on dipshit housemates. Good and understanding people do exist. Like, would you be one of those disrespectful people you describe? Probably not, which proves people like you do exist.

Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households

#73

Post by mindslight » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 4:21 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #7

Is it a bad thing? People's life choices are their own. 29% seems like a fairly neutral number.

It's utterly terrible regarding the issues of housing availability, settling down to start our own families, and elder care. The multi-generation pattern is that the grandparents watch the kids while the middle generation does useful work - the grandparents supervise the kids, while the kids keep the grandparents entertained. Then when the kids get old enough, they help supervise the grandparents.

I think we could naturally fall back into this pattern as housing, elder, and child care continue to get ever more expensive... but for the fact that the baseline suburban house is built with a single common living space, meant for a single family all constantly interacting with each other. You have to get into much more expensive houses with "in-law apartments" and whatnot before you regain the breathing room to have multiple generations living together. And now even houses with that extra space have become economic-grindstone legible due to short term rentals.

Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households

#74

Post by ASalazarMX » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 4:38 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #43

When I was a twentysomething, I had roommates. This saved money on rent and bulk purchases (which let me spend more time having fun and save money) and provided a starter-kit social circle in a new city. It also honed conflict-resolution skills and ability to be civil. And when I got a partner, it made moving in together smoother. Something I’ve noticed recently is many college graduates living alone. That’s fine. Bu…

Living alone is awesome, but I also had roommates while in university, and despite our differences, that was awesome too, it would have sucked to be alone.

I guess living alone can be a sound decision, but it depends on context.

Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households

#75

Post by lazide » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:09 PM UTC

latexr wrote: post #72

lazide wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> and it isn't because they hate their mental health. No, of course not. But that doesn’t also mean it can’t have an effect. Social media is harmful to many of us who still partake. Sometimes what we do isn’t what’s best. Some of those people who live alone could benefit from living with someone else, others might not. It’s not an absolute, just worth considering. > The issue here is how hard it is to protect your ow…

I gave up on roommates years ago, so I would not even be in the eval set.

Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households

#76

Post by mindslight » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:25 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #61

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.

For sure, but this is tied into the elder care crisis. My aunt is the sole occupant of a gigantic "2 family" [0]. Not even in the suburbs, but in what you'd describe as a small city downtown. She toys with the idea of assisted living, but the deal basically seems to be trading her house to buy in, and then a huge monthly ongoing fee. And we all know once you're in such a place, the rosy marketing about the care you're going to get never really pans out. Whereas she gets the full attention of the hired helper who comes by twice a week.

At this point I think she's well past assisted living, and relies on being in a familiar environment. So those concerns plus the non-winning finances, my advice is to stay there as long as she can. Because from what I've seen of nursing homes, they're basically grueling slow-motion assisted suicide.

[0] It's actually 3 units, one in a state of paused remodel. I haven't been able to tell if it started its life as 2 units each with an upstairs and downstairs and a shared stairway, or as 4 separate units even.

Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households

#77

Post by silexia » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 6:33 PM UTC

The best thing I ever did for my mental health was to start having children. Humans, like every other living creature, are hardwired by billions of years of evolution to reproduce.

Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households

#78

Post by xnx » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 7:01 PM UTC

mindslight wrote: post #76

xnx wrote: post #61

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.

For sure, but this is tied into the elder care crisis. My aunt is the sole occupant of a gigantic "2 family" [0]. Not even in the suburbs, but in what you'd describe as a small city downtown. She toys with the idea of assisted living, but the deal basically seems to be trading her house to buy in, and then a huge monthly ongoing fee. And we all know once you're in such a place, the rosy marketing about the care you'r…

Great example. It's a shame the switching costs are so high, and the availability of appropriately-sized housing so low that she can't downsize in a financially advantageous way.

Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households

#79

Post by mindslight » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 7:08 PM UTC

xnx wrote: post #78

mindslight wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure, but this is tied into the elder care crisis. My aunt is the sole occupant of a gigantic "2 family" [0]. Not even in the suburbs, but in what you'd describe as a small city downtown. She toys with the idea of assisted living, but the deal basically seems to be trading her house to buy in, and then a huge monthly ongoing fee. And we all know once you're in such a place, the rosy marketing about the care you'r…

Great example. It's a shame the switching costs are so high, and the availability of appropriately-sized housing so low that she can't downsize in a financially advantageous way.

From the patterns I've seen there are roughly two buckets of people. Some get ahead of this when they're still quite young, embrace "retirement" and "downsizing", etc. This makes the switching costs worth it - they're paying to start a new deliberate life.

And others just want to stay in their same home they know and love even as they slow down and do less and less. I myself feel I'm going to be in this latter camp, and I don't know what I'd do differently to change that.

I wrote another comment elsewhere in this topic about the lack of multi-generation households, and I feel that is directly part of the problem here too. Of course it's a very tall ask to expect your kid(s) to stick around in the American individualist culture. Although the economics of this might change with where we're headed...

Re: 40M Americans Live Alone, 29% of households

#80

Post by prewett » Thu, Jan 22, 2026, 7:25 PM UTC

expedition32 wrote: post #47

pavlov wrote: post #7

Is it a bad thing? People's life choices are their own. 29% seems like a fairly neutral number.

It triggers conservatives and Christians who believe in the nuclear family and biblical lifestyle. They despise liberty and agency.

Western ideas of liberty and agency came out of 1500 years of Christian. Christians put limits on liberty and agency, but that's very different than despising it.

Even from an atheistic standpoint, current levels of liberty and agency are clearly evolutionarily unfit. The fertility rate of Christians (and other conservative religious people) are at or above replacement level, which means that the unlimited liberty and agency folks are substantially below replacement levels.