Remember that the nuclear family ideal (husband/wife/child as the entire family unit) is an aberration of the 20th century. Everyone else in the world for almost all of human history has lived in large groups, either tribes or extended families, usually a blend of both. When a woman married she joined her husband’s family, or he joined hers, but humans have generally always lived in large groups with multiple generations sharing space for all of our history.

Our western experiment with making two people entirely dependent on each other for all of the emotional support normal people get from a large extended family group is part of the reason we’ve got a high divorce rate. One person isn’t enough to sustain another entirely.

I think as well, this is why so many single people (like me!) get so damn LONELY. 

I recently bought a house (by myself) and I pay all the bills, buy all the food, ect, because it’s just me that lives here. 

And at night, I’m so fucking LONELY. My coupled friends don’t get it, they want some peace and quiet to get away from the kids, or the hubby - and when I say “I’m so bored” they don’t get it. 

My ONLY FACE-TO-FACE interaction is at work. 

That’s it. If I don’t make the effort to go out at weekends, I see no one.

Sure, I can talk to people on the phone, and I have online friends… but you know, I don’t remember the last time I got a hug?

Yup. I went to a coworker who I’m close to the other day and asked for a hug because I couldn’t remember the last time I touched another human being. Dog cuddles can only take me so far.

Holy shit, it’s what I’ve been saying the whole time.  I’m super introverted, but I /need/ people around me.  I will go to coffee shops just to talk to the barista and hear people around me, because I get so lonely.  I routinely turn into a clingy, touchy-feely person when I’m home because that is the only place I get hugs.  Do you know how many times I have become just… absolutely depressed and unhappy, just because I want a fucking hug and there’s no one to hug?  There was this admin assistant when I started here and she and I talked a lot and I’d go by her office just to say hi, and she would always, ALWAYS give me a hug.  And then she left, and now I don’t get hugs.  Which maybe seems like a weird thing to be upset about, but I am, routinely.

People ask me how I put up with having a roommate all the time, and why I don’t just live by myself rather than playing roommate roulette and maybe getting a bad roommate (hasn’t happened so far, though).  It’s because I go CRAZY when I live alone.  Sure, having the cats around helps, but I seriously DO NOT deal well living by myself.  I’ve tried it, and I can handle it for about three weeks to a month, but after that it starts to really wear on me, especially if I’m dealing with a lot of stress or something at school/work.  I often joke that I don’t care if I ever get married, but I would be super psyched if someone I really liked (or multiple someones, even better) and got along with wanted to be roommates forever and ever so at least I’d know I wouldn’t be alone.

Right, this. Positive social contact, including friendly touch, is a thing that most-to-all humans very much need. I’m both pretty solitary and pretty good at keeping my chin up even when things aren’t ideal, but when I look back at my life the unhappiest part of it by far was the part where I was most isolated. And I’ve never even had to deal with living alone, so who knows how I’d handle that.

And, honestly, that expectation – on a societal level! – that everyone will find one person and basically build a life around them and only them…like OP said, I find that pretty horrifying. Especially when the dominant socially acceptable alternative is the aforementioned intense loneliness. Good grief.

So to summarise - working full time long hours plays havoc with having a social life.

We need a social life or we get sick and lonely.

Therefore we should stop working long hours and use our free time to cultivate friendships.

Sound freaking excellent idea to me.

If we actually had enough space for all of us I’ve said more than once that I could live with my siblings forever. Right now there’s five people and two emotionally best cats living in our three bedroom house so it’s not great.

But with enough room? Sign me up

My sister and her best friend lived next door to each other in their apartment building for a few years and it was great for them. A few nights a week they’d make dinner together or go out and do something. They watched certain shows together, splitting the cost of cable so it was actually affordable. The rest of the time they had their own space and could hang out with their boyfriends whenever. Even their cats went back and forth between the apartments.

Tl;dr I could happily live in the same apartment building with a few of my friends forever.

@prosthetical and I have continually been talking about a very similar arrangement for years now.

Rose I am still 1000% serious about this. I want to live in a small queer/trans/neurodivergent commune. Like a duplex or triplex or quadplex or something similar.

Plz come here. I can’t handle living WITH your kids but I would be happy to live near them.

I swear this will be a thing. I mean obviously not now but like.. I for real want this to be a thing.

THIS THIS THIS.

I have to have communal living spaces. Living alone may work for some people but I think it’s toxic for most. Having a partner, if that’s your thing, is wonderful and it provides a much needed level of companionship. But people, coupled or otherwise, they need friends. Human beings can’t do it alone, can’t do it in duos. They need community, they need family and friends.

My dream would be living in a giant house with plenty of space and plenty of people. I’d love to have myself and my partner and then two or three other friends, either with partners or alone, all living together, eating together, hanging out and spending time. We could all work to support the whole house as a group, as a family. Maybe even all raising kids together at a future point. That’s living the dream for me.

I’m really dreading school now that I’m going full time, because all my friends are online. I have few to no real life friends who are more than acquaintances. I have family as roommates, but I’m going to move out next semester with god knows who. I’m terrified.

I find I have the opposite problem?

I love my boyfriend very much and he’s probably my best friend. We have many common interests together. We co-parent. We understand each other’s introversion very well.

But like… that hasn’t stopped me from being lonely. I mean, to an extent, the longer and more committed you are as a couple, the less you NEED a dazzling social life. But you really can’t have just one. I have no one to hang out wth regularly other than my boyfriend and it’s really depressing. Sometimes I just want to talk about girl stuff, or whatever, and my bf is great about a lot of things but he doesn’t satisfy all of my needs, nor should he.

I live in a house with nine people in it (two children, seven adults). I co-own the house with two of my housemates, who have lived with me since the early 1990s; the newest housemate moved in four or five years ago, and most of us have been living in this house at least a decade. There are other friends we’d like to live with, but we never have a vacancy.

Cohousing is the best. There are problems - no living situation is without problems - but the benefit of having other people around, of having a situation in which spontaneous conversations with friends naturally occur, is (cue Donald) YUUUUUGGEE. I’ve lived alone, and it’s exactly as other folks here have described - lonely AF. I have no idea how I would have gotten through life if I didn’t have cohousing.

One thing I’ve noticed - I’m much less desperate to not be single than many of my single friends. Sure, I’d like to have a romance - but it’s not a big driving need with me. And I think that’s because I don’t have the fear of loneliness if I don’t find a girlfriend.

Also, I think this arrangement is much better for the two kids - and for their parents - than living on their own would be. If you want to become a parent, cohousing can be a great situation.