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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.

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.

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 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.

>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.

Absolutely never again with roommates. None of the "benefits" of having them can justify not living alone if one can afford

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).

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?

I think personality plays a big role. If it works for you, great!

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.

No, I prefer living without roommates, if I can afford it. I want my privacy and autonomy.

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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

I had a roommate for the first time again in my early 30s after getting divorced. Looking back now I enjoyed it. I felt that I had to grow up and get my own place again after our lease was up. I think this was true, at the time I did have a two year old daughter and we were living illegally in a warehouse. Not the best way to raise a small child. However, if I could go back, I think I would have found another communal living space. My roommate on the other hand may have more mixed feeling about it given the screaming two year old and my constant cooking of monkfish… which was later barred from the menu.

From my experience going to boarding school, living on campus at University and living with housemates for almost a decade and having an enjoyable time throughout.

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.

The problem is finding dependable/clean/nice roommates…

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.

I wonder if housing could be designed in such a way as to provide the best of both worlds. Maybe 2 private rooms with external access sharing a communal area for shared meals if desired.

The case for normalising poverty.

Golden Girls!

Hard pass, most people are annoying and messy. Living with people also introduces other human issues, like people getting jealous of you, or trying to exploit you. If one has to have roommates, be super discerning and stingy with your trust.

If it's a great house or location or deal, people will stay notwithstanding conflict.

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?