Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The case for having roommates even when you can afford to live alone

supernuclear.substack.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 119 posts

Re: The case for having roommates even when you can afford to live alone

#91

Post by thunderfork »

mock-possum wrote: post #18
OutOfHere wrote: post #11

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.

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…

[dead]

Re: The case for having roommates even when you can afford to live alone

#92

Post by 5pl1n73r »

> avocado, olive, and coconut oil; ten basic spices; honey, maple syrup, apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, miso, and almond butter.

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.

Re: The case for having roommates even when you can afford to live alone

#93

Post by em-bee »

raffael_de wrote: post #50
Aurornis wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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, sharin…

> Because this is just describing what it’s like to have a family and a household. 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 certa…

actually, i disagree. being a family should be more teamwork than it often is. in other words families would work better if they work like a team. that includes the children. it's a bit of both. in teams you too have people who are weaker in some aspects. in a good team, you help those people and support them. in a family you should give everyone a chance to contribute and participate in decisions. mother and father are not predefined roles. the parents should work as a team like senior developers, they act with authority because they have more experience, and they include their children like you would include junior developers.

Re: The case for having roommates even when you can afford to live alone

#94

Post by CMCDragonkai »

lantry wrote: post #59
8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #27

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?

It depends on what you want to do with your life, and what kind of partner you want. Most people want to date someone with their own place, because most people want their own place. If you want to live in a communal living situation, you're not going to be very happy if you partner up with someone who wants their own place. Will you sacrifice communal living in order to gain a partner? Or will you look for a partner…

There's not such thing as a permanent fixed identity though. "Just be yourself" raises a more interesting question. Who is yourself? Why is that way? Why should it be that way? Have you reflected on why you want what you want or why you behave the way you do? Do you think the way you are is the way you should be? Or is there a cognitive disconnect between the is and ought?

Re: The case for having roommates even when you can afford to live alone

#95

Post by andrewrn »

I suppose it may be luck, but the ~15 roommates I’ve had over the years became, at worst, neutral acquaintance types or, at best, my best friends of all time. I’ve never had any of the common horror stories.

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.

Re: The case for having roommates even when you can afford to live alone

#96

Post by duttish »

Two thoughts

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.

Re: The case for having roommates even when you can afford to live alone

#97

Post by illiac786 »

cowcity wrote: post #79
illiac786 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmmm, but if you’re the landlord and you only care about money as you imply, why wouldn’t you move out and just rent, mrather than dealing with roommates?

Landlords have much more power. Usually more money too, but always more power. Source: I am a landlord and I could temporarily destroy either of my roommates' livelihoods at the drop of a dime whenever I please. As a result, they are basically my permanent friends until they save up enough to move out. The difference between me and others in my position is I understand these are material relationships more than socia…

I do agree that this is not being roommates but rather having (paying) guests.

I just would like to nuance the power a landlord holds. It really depends where you live. I live in Germany since a while now and renters have very very strong rights, they can just as well make the life of the landlord impossible. They can stop paying and it’ll be months, maybe even years, before he can kick them out.

Re: The case for having roommates even when you can afford to live alone

#98

Post by illiac786 »

swat535 wrote: post #82
illiac786 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that living with roommates may be harder than living alone, from a financial responsibility point of view. You not only need to be responsible for yourself but you need to deal with roommates which may not be. 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 ;)

Good point, additionally, how do you expect the relationship to grow if you are not unable to unfortunately secure basic private lodging? 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 alwa…

Oh, I fully agree that people ok with this arrangement beyond 30 years are rare. But if that’s who a person is, why should they give it up? They should keep searching for the soulmate that is also ok with this arrangement.

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.

Re: The case for having roommates even when you can afford to live alone

#99

Post by RHSeeger »

sdenton4 wrote: post #62
derektank wrote: post #8

>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 s…

I lived in communal houses for a very long time. The best was something like this - we had communal meals four nights a week, and everyone had one cooking night. The other nights, you know you just show up and there's food. It's way easier to scale a single meal up to more people than it is to cook a smaller meal every night. And as folks cook together and rotate around, they learn and cook better. And you end up wit…

> And you end up with more variety, as you experience the full gamut of idiosyncratic tastes.

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.

Re: The case for having roommates even when you can afford to live alone

#100

Post by em-bee »

pentamassiv wrote: post #84
wussboy wrote: post #49

I think it's important to call out the difference between "what I prefer" and "what is good for me". We understand this fully in many aspects of our lives (from "My body prefers to do heroin" to "I prefer not to exercise but I do it because it's good for me"). 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…

I think so too. It helps to form good habits. If you have a roommate for example, you can't leave your dirty dishes everywhere and need to clean it as soon as you are done. You can learn a lot from your roommates too. One of my ex flatmates was super crafty and I got a different perspective on things thanks to that. I used to live in a flat with one flatmate who changed every half a year or so because they were usual…

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.

Post reply on HN