(Originally sent to my occasional Substack, Life Coach from Hell, on January 24, 2024)

… Housemates / House Partners

What should we call them?

Semi-charming redhead seeking: 3-9 people to create a gorgeous, cozy, cooperative dream house filled with delicious shared meals and incredible smells, fabulous art, and plenty of space to garden, and to develop numerous and varied zones for us and friends to live, relax, and make food, art, projects…

I decided when I was a kid / teenager that I never wanted to have kids or get married. But just because I don’t want to have a single partner for my entire life or to raise children means I want to live alone.

Endless Apps / Articles / Books / Websites Devoted to Romantic Love 

But What About Other Relationships?

There are so many apps and websites devoted to finding romantic (ahem) partners and not quite as much attention is devoted to some of the other key relationships we have in our lives.

Aside from the heroic models of the show Golden Girls, there aren’t a lot of examples of adults living together beyond their 20s (know of some? tell me! Three’s Company?).

Like we’re all supposed to fall into the life of either half of a couple or if not a part of a couple well, go live alone and be alone and eat alone and exist alone.

What About the Extroverts? (Not Just the Extroverts But)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m INCREDIBLE company (hair flip) for myself and I don’t mind being alone with myself ever. I could live in a cave (if it’s cozy) with books and a notebook to great pleasure for the rest of this here life.

But I also am super into other people. I’m a deep extrovert from a big family and I want to have a big home with big joy and big potlucks and murals and gardens and collaborators and community!

Roommates as a Temporary Solution to the  Affordable Housing Crisis 

It’s not uncommon for people in their 20s & 30s in larger cities to live in apartments or houses with other people to make housing more affordable. But that’s often just temporary — on the way to settling down with a partner or alone.

These living situations are often advertised on social media or craigslist or (now even Zillow is in on the roommate game) announcing that there’s a room in a house with other people! 

But so often these listings offer almost no information about those people you’d be sharing a HOME with. How is that possible?!

How Do Your Potential Roommates Live?

How do those people live? 

• Are they in metal bands that practice at dawn? 

• Are they new doctors who go on benders when they get off their long shifts? 

• Are they well-meaning-but-unable-to-pay-the-bills musicians and writers?

• Are they experimental chefs born without a sense of smell and no idea the scents their whipping up to waft into your delicate Ol Factory?

How could something as intimate and important to life as the people we share a home with be left to a quick email / interview and maybe a fast tour?

What if We Were More Intentional About How We Live?

When we need a place to live, we usually just look for the building, rather than the people we want to live with.

What if we start to pay attention to all of our preferences and look for other people who want to live that way too?

What if we meet up and interview each other (more than once!) and talk about all of these things and then look for places together if we think it’s a good fit?

What if Choosing to Live Together Was Something to Aspire to?

I started to make a list of the top ten things I was looking for in creating my dream home but once I got started, I remembered I had zillions of lists I’ve been compiling about my dream house and the list kept getting longer and longer and now it’s up to 55. Snort.

While it’s unlikely I’ll find anyone who matches with or agrees with all (or 5) of my dream elements, it was helpful to spell out everything in advance rather than remembering later.

Since my list is as ridiculously long as Zoolander is good-looking, I’ll share that in a separate post.

But in the meantime, what about you? 

What’s Your Dream Living Situation? 

Are you into living alone, with a partner/family, or other people?

Have you tried to find compatible people to live with besides a partner?

Think someone else might be into this? 

Pass it along!