It’s nice to live with like-minded people.
It’s nice to have a community irl.
It’s nice to feel like you’re not lonely.
This is the promise of co-living.
co-living, the dark side
I’m banned on Airbnb for the 3 houses I hosted in ETH Denver.
I’ve been kicked out of an Airbnb with 8 other people and was forced to book a single 4-person hotel room to cover for a night just to almost then get kicked out again.
I’ve been…
stuck cleaning up after house parties until the birds started singing
charged the wrong amount for rent by shady landlords
been in-debt to charges in rent that weren’t my own
accused of scamming people even though I’ve made a grand total of $0 from hosting houses
the charity driver, dishwasher, trash taker-outer, and floor sweeper over and over again
I don’t drink. I don’t like partying. I don’t do drugs.
From November to May I lived in 7 different “group houses” -- NYC, SF, Hawaii, Denver, UK, and Miami.
In the months since I’ve lived in group houses, these have been springing up across Twitter, VC, and the startup scene. These take the form of franchises and brands that have created a resident-to-startup incubator like that in the show Silicon Valley or short-term houses at conferences or houses that have a fancy Greek name.
The organizers range anywhere from being an angel investor, a company, or a random 19 or 20 year old who “just wants to vibe” and is “passionate about bringing url to irl.”
Yet the culture of hype and young talent in the startup scene and consequently in these houses is stricken by allure of VC money, drugs, alcohol, and partying as opposed to innate curiosity and a passion to strike change in the world.
In young founder culture, the celebration of “making it” often rings as living in an overpriced shared mansion in the hills over spending time with like-minded and interesting people.1 In San Francisco, it’s defined as making it to all the “founder happy hours” and “web3 meetups” that do nothing more than hodgepodge the same group of grifters. Going to these events made me feel uncomfortable and I would often try to leave immediately after walking into them.
Two months living in San Francisco, I had enough of it and kept finding reasons to leave. I commuted to my parents’ house as refuge because I felt like I was drowning in the startup culture.
Eventually, I moved to LA for a month to escape it all and now live alone.
I still enjoy living with people in houses, but realize it does take a very careful crafting of personalities for the house to feel productive and thought-provoking.
There’s many others I’ve met who have lived in houses in the past but now enjoy living alone much more. Peace, ability to have a clear mind, and a clean kitchen sink seem to still outweigh a lot of the benefits of living in a house for many.
Going forward, I’d only have roommates to save money or when trying out living in a new city or going on a retreat with friends. I’m hopeful that the hype cycle of group houses will settle and am looking forward to the future of living and growing together in close communities outside of the startup and tech context.
Some relevant links:
Why Co-living Economics Don’t Make Sense by levelsio
Factors that Dilute a Community with more People by hang
Building and Maintaining a Community by liam
Coexisting: On Co-Working and Co-Living by me
with a few exceptions like arhouse
Yikes. That sounds like a string of horrible experiences. Also, alcohol is the most overrated intoxicant mankind has found.
I find coliving and cohousing as worthwhile pursuits since the endgame is a level of community support and communion that amounts to a perfect harmony between a human being and all their needs, from the mundane nervous level system stuff all the way through to self-actualization.
I talked to Jason Benn about it (https://maxefremov.com/cohousing-coliving-why/), and I would totally check out his site for his public search of coliving done well (https://jasonbenn.com/).
I suspect you learned a lot about identifying grifters from the sincere. That will probably serve you well if you continue to experiment in cohousing!