Why don't we live together?

[catherine]

I mentioned some of them in my post. I get stressed being around pushy personalities, and often have a tough time coming up with phrasing in the moment when someone asks me to do something beyond my comfort level. I feel resentment if I feel I'm always the one being imposed upon. In work and college projects, I often felt like I was carrying the load because of my overly developed sense of obligation. There have been many times people have used my good nature to their own ends. I don't like drama and avoid it like the plague.

Yeah, I agree with you on all counts. I'm very similar. I guess I imagine cohousing in an environment where you have your own home but share some things in common like gardens or community halls as not having the same type of constant demands as living together as roommates or housemates would for instance. I would not like a housemate and would only do it if I couldn't afford anything else.

[Tybee]

I mentioned some of them in my post. I get stressed being around pushy personalities, and often have a tough time coming up with phrasing in the moment when someone asks me to do something beyond my comfort level. I feel resentment if I feel I'm always the one being imposed upon. In work and college projects, I often felt like I was carrying the load because of my overly developed sense of obligation. There have been many times people have used my good nature to their own ends. I don't like drama and avoid it like the plague.

Having to live closely with people who stress me out and be in the midst of drama a lot is my idea of hell.

You have described exactly living with my brothers. Yikes.

[razz]

Could what Bae is describing could be addressed by communal living with some man-cave and she-sheds for privacy? In the Guardian httpains://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/apr/11/me-and-my-she-shed-women-on-discovering-what-a-life-saver-theier-own-private-shed-can-be?utm_term=2a9195e34b53480a98ad8cc596b762f6&utm_c ampaign=GuardianTodayUK&utm_source=esp&utm_medium= Email&CMP=GTUK_email article different women describe their efforts to gain some privacy for their own needs -author, jewelry creation, artist and just space for oneself.


I agree that often someone dominates in any group whether it is overwhelming or just a nuisance is determined by the balance of the group "going along just to get along" which then enables a near dictatorship by the one over time. I am part of a group of seven women who in normal times get together regularly. One who held a strong managership position before her retirement tries to organize every detail at times. I am the only one who protests occasionally and she then steps back. She seems to need to be dominant. I would find her exhausting 24/7 although I love her as a friend.

[LDAHL]

Even if I had a little space to retreat to, I think I would have a problem living in the equivalent of the office break room. It probably doesn’t reflect well on me that I’m so selfish about my privacy and not wanting to compromise my habits with other people’s. It can be difficult enough living with people I love, much less anyone else.

[Rogar]

Rogar: That looks like a really cool community. Any idea what the homes are going for? I do wonder about the whole consensus decision making model. I mean, it certainly sounds lovely, but how well can it work with real live human beings?

I've not seen any indication of prices on the web site. It's not all that far from Telluride, which is a millionaire Aspen sort of ski town, but at one time Ridgeway was just a sleepy little stop over to the more popular places. Probably medium expensive. It looked to me like a lot of the communal activities were optional. I think the big cons for me were how closely the lots were spaced, distance from medical facilities, and the longer winters. Good for a younger person who is into winter sports. My thermoregulation system doesn't work as well as it once did.

It is close to some of the pretty places I've ever visited though.

[iris lilies]

Gee.. again, I'm interested in how doubtful people are that human beings can co-exist! . I imagine that decision-making would be made the same way that town decisions are made, or HOA decisions are made, or even how State and Federal decisions are made.

The opposite of communal life is what I had in New Jersey--living as---le to belly-button with your neighbor but barely even seeing them for decades. Everyone has a different expectation and tolerance level for interactions with neighbors, but for me, I've learned through my VT experience that people can get along and work for common goals. Getting the right people might be like winning the lottery, but I'll take that chance. I'd have no problem navigating the idiosyncrasies of human personalities to get a wider "family"

Suburbia is awful. It is a common theme here in my walkable city neighborhood that new people move in and say something to the effect “when I lived in Suburb X I never talked to our neighbors, but within a month here I had met all nearby neighbors and kept seeing them around the neighborhood, so we feel as though we know many people!”

One thing that strikes me when I read about co-housing and why it isn’t for me is this:

When I choose a place to live, one element I find important, even tho I didn’t think about it at the time, is that I join a tribe of like-minded people. This seems to be true with my condo—many people there have this old building as their second home, they love and respect the old building, and frankly most of them are old themselves, like me.

Hermann is a bit different in that there is a WIDE variety of ages and family situations on our block, but we know people there already. It is true that most are there because they have family roots there, they are not quaint-chasers like us. But there are plenty of people in wider Hermann who are there for the cuteness.

So, with a typical co-housing situation, I feel that I would not fit in, this would not be my tribe, because people who move there are all about the shared experience of wonderful HUMAN INTERACTION and they want to get cozy and social with those HUMANs. For them, it is about the HUMAN experience. Those people are not my tribe!

My tribe values the built environment. It likes handsome old buildings and it works to restore and maintain them.

This is probably a simplistic view of people who gravitate toward co-housing, but it is my view. They are not my peeps and I do not want to live with them!

[JaneV2.0]

Perhaps unfairly, I look askance at the "crunchy granola" stereotype that co-housers have.

In defense of suburbs, I've lived in two that were pretty walkable, though Bellevue is more likely classed an edge city. One of the many advantages they have is that one can be as private as one desires. You have to be intrepid to walk here (the town center is a mile or more away)--outside of "walking to nowhere," as my friend describes it.

[JaneV2.0]

I'm still chuckling over "This is not the way that we've lived for most of humanity." For most of human history, we lived like monkeys. I, for one, am happy we evolved and are able to enjoy computers and sanitation.

[sweetana3]

Iris we are sisters. I lived in a NC suburban hell for 3 years. Only really knew my neighbor since we were the only two people we could find in our whole subdivision who did not work or have a bunch of kids. Really bad demographic for me. A huge downside is there was no place to walk except around the subdivision and driving was required for everything. Now we live in an urban downtown historic area although ours is mixed and with more SFHomes and commercial than the surrounding ones. I love the area and my neighbors and rarely drive. All ages with some retired empty nesters, walkable downtown and to all kinds of attractions since the city built up around a core.

Cohousing was my big interest in the late 90s when it started to boom. Actually investigated Eno Commons in NC and probably would still live in NC if we had bought there. They were SFhomes of a nice size and great community resources. But it was not to be. Now after a lot of research, I think my expectations were unrealistic and cohousing requires too much "closeness" for me. Or maybe it would force me to change? Dont know but after many years of following the movement I did not like what I was seeing.

[dado potato]

I would be open to co-housing, provided that the communication among residents was compassionate and non-violent... rather than "a living hell".

I am also curious about the Village-to-Village Network as an alternative for people of riper years, to serve their needs as they age in place in their own established homes. http://vtvnetwork.org

A wide variety of local non-profit organizations facilitate shared housing. The website of the National Shared Housing Resource Center (NSHRC) lists member organizations in CA, CO, FL, IL, LA, MD, MA, MI, NJ, NY, NC, OR, PA, TX, VT and WA. http://nationalsharedhousing.org/program-directory