Living Together

Strange all the little habits each of us have that we may not realize, yet living with someone else to point them out to us maybe how we adapt to the world.

The first group we live with is our family.

We don’t have much choice so early in our life molding we must follow rules presented to us by elders responsible for feeding, clothing and providing shelter. Without any power or enough money, the training is fed back for the praise and acknowledgment of the continuing of the name.

Outside groups such as schools or church or sports teams offer actions that must be filtered through the family to be accepted and followed. More and more outside influences creep into your self being as age allows more time away from the family and more responsible to present yourself as an individual.

Usually going to college is the first real test of this individual behavior. Most students not studying from home will live in dorms or apartments with a “roommate”.

A complete stranger who shares a room becomes part of the new experience of growing up. Not only are you responsible for studying and getting to class on time, but you must also dress yourself, feed yourself, and even bath occasionally with this stranger in the same room.

The first similarity is that you both are going to the same school. Everything else may become irreverent. Survival finds a way to form some kind of bond with this new person sharing “your” space. Music, literature, girls, food…. are some of the possibilities of interest that can be explored and discussed until some liked platform is agreed upon.

Roommates are just that, people that share a space and as long as agreed boundaries are accepted and followed, life can mildly adjusted to meet the new conditions.

Now throw in romance and this living together takes a whole new angle.

People living together can become close friends or buddies, but when cupid strikes a new evaluation must take place.

As casual as people try to be, when there are two toothbrushes in the bathroom, life has changed. Suddenly the socks left on the floor are no longer acceptable.

It is called compromise.

And how much each other gives to the compromise will make the new rules for the living conditions.

And the “living together” arrangements continue to mold the two into one thought pattern unknown to both. The singular individual each was searching for becomes a couple and by all appearance in clothing, furniture, artwork, even animals or children, the condition of life in inextinguishable by the two, or the one, until the situation changes.

Then the old habits come back. The socks lay on the floor. The dishes sit in the sink. The bed is unmade and there are more beer cans in the trash than before.

Realization that the “self” patterns are back and not in conflict with another must be evaluated as acceptable behavior or just child like wishes for another time. There still must be realistic expectations of living in the bigger community, yet a certain freedom presents itself.

Living together shows how much an individual can adjust for another and also how much we give up of ourselves.