My roommates have taught me a lot about the behaviors of all people.

If we were to pretend that people were plants, then I'd say that economic conditions in 2024 leave a lot of people "root bound." They cannot grow, and they enter a period of sameness that can last years or even decades wherein no change happens. However, this also makes it easier for other people to find and befriend them.

 I have now lived with other people (roommates) for a year and a half. When I first started this "experiment," I didn't know if I could actually live with people. And it turns out...I absolutely can! But I now understand better than I ever did why there is a loneliness epidemic in this country, and I think I can understand why we are as divided as ever on issues. At the end of the day, I believe (despite my small sample size), that a large amount (huge amount) of the population is actually unfit for human cohabitation. But this isn't an essay that backs up that hypothesis. Rather, it is one of those wherein I muse about the different behaviors of my roommates that I shall call "Alpha" and "Beta."

Both Alpha and Beta are men from the millennial generation. Alpha (the younger one) has literally no observation ability. This was an incredible thing to realize. If a rattlesnake was shaking its tail and wasn't hidden by bushes and was clearly seen in bright light on a trail...I think Alpha would step on it. He doesn't notice anything. If a burner is going on the stove, he doesn't see it. If there's a bee in the room, he has no idea that it is buzzing around his head. If there's a pile of shit in the middle of the floor, he doesn't smell it, and will step in it because he doesn't see it. That's how bad his observation is. It also impacts his ability to budget and save.

For example, Alpha buys these premixed honey butter things that come in a plastic container. My process is to watch him buy one, then watch him put it in the pantry for whatever "sweet thing" that he wants to use it on. When he finally gets around to using it, he puts it on the shelf in the fridge. He doesn't use it again, and then it slowly drifts to the back of the fridge where he forgets about it. I continue to observe it for a few months until it gets frosted over (this sometimes happens with the cold spots in the fridge). By then, Alpha has bought another honey butter that he intends to use on another sweet that he places in the pantry. And then I throw away the old honey butter that he no longer even remembers. Now...you may think that this is "normal behavior." But it happens with clothes too. He had a hoodie that he started leaving on the coat tree by the door. I noticed that month after month it lingered, until a year had passed, and I saw him wearing a new hoodie. So, I quietly discarded the old one that he must have forgotten was his. There's no permanence of memory.

My other roommate, Beta, has extremist conservative views that he gets from watching a lot of Andrew Tate videos. But aside from being an incel (he's not all that bad after you get to know him), he harbors some very strange ideas of what is smart and what is stupid. For example, when I use the term "genius" thinking of musical talent, or art talent, or athletic talent, or creative talent...Alpha doesn't recognize any of these terms. To him, "genius" only applies to someone who can do math. If you can't do complicated math, you aren't a genius. Also (as a caveat) he's very good at math. So, I think he views himself as a genius and just thinks everyone else is stupid (this may be a kind of personal empowerment in the absence of any other kind of evidence that proves that he is not a failure). But at the same time, he's unemployed and is struggling to find a job with his credentials. So he's kind of this "disgruntled man" who thinks he's a "genius" and he comes up with all kinds of reasons as to why he isn't getting hired, including "woke" hiring practices and whatnot. It's all just a conspiracy holding him down. He's also declared that he doesn't believe in the concept of wisdom. In other words, you are either smart or you're not. But in demonstration of this, he has so little wisdom it can fit into a thimble. Some of this manifests in buying a new car right before getting fired and then realizing he has an $800 a month car payment to make and rent to make as well. Not a very "genius" move if you ask me, but I digress.

One of the things I find so fascinating about both Alpha and Beta is that they are not "static" people. And by virtue of this small study group, I think all people share this same trait. When I met them, they just primarily ate one kind of food and did one kind of activity (play Dungeons & Dragons). Their lives were pretty much "work" and "play," in other words they lived binary existences. They moved in with me, I charged them reasonable rent, and here they are staying for now (I do hope that they move on sooner rather than later as my observations from month to month are only so entertaining). However, because I charge them reasonable rent, they are exploding at the seams in attempts to flourish. In America, we call this act the "pursuit of happiness." It's like watching a plant grow in a garden. Given room, it tries to spread. That's what's happening here at my house, and yes it surprises me. I thought they'd be static...fixed in time...people who just did their thing and paid rent. Was I naive? Probably. So it was a good thing to get roommates. I wonder if there are any other naive people out there? If so, it would be better for society if they did what I did and educated themselves.

But no, people are not static, if you give them room to grow. Beta in particular is trying to become a bodybuilder. I never would have seen this coming. Gym membership, ski passes to the mountains, working out, swimming, trying to lose weight to climb Mount Fuji in Japan, and you name it. There's so much protein in my house that it's honestly kind of gross to think about all the protein drinks, shakes, etc. that get mixed in the sink everyday, with protein splatter that ends up all over everything. I've read online before that scientists believe there is way too much protein being consumed by American men. Well...if you take a look at my house...there definitely is, and it's honestly not transforming Beta's body in any way that I can notice. Suddenly...all of the pizza boxes I'd noted in his previous apartment disappeared. Now Beta uses the stove daily, trying to meal prep, eating salmon and rice and oatmeal and doing all of these other things while watching Andrew Tate videos (yuck) but whatever. Sometimes, Beta takes time out of his day to rant about how stupid women are. And then he goes and does the very thing he rants about, not realizing that he just comes across as misogynistic. Self-awareness is not common with many young men I've decided.

Alpha, with access to top-end appliances and soft water and other things, now does his laundry twice a week to stay on top of his hygiene (I don't think this was a thing before he lived with me). So I hear the rumble of the wash on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights. Combined with Beta's wash habits, sometimes it feels like the laundry machine never stops working, despite this only being a household of three. He eats at home a lot, and as cheaply as possible in order to save money for little vacations he takes with his non-binary friend to their cabin in Idaho and other places (like a game convention in Arizona). So there's always stacks of tin cans that need washed and recycled from all the cheap canned food he buys, and there's an entire freezer filled with chicken fingers just waiting for the air fryer. It's that plant just trying to grow and take up the extra space that's available in the garden. Nothing...no one...is a static thing. Every single person when you meet them is not actually who they are. They are only that person in that one slice of time, and tomorrow their desires and their goals will change. This is an important concept to master whenever you meet (and decide that you like) a person. They are different tomorrow!

It's actually amazing to me that relationships of any kind can actually happen in this world. With everyone constantly striving to change who they are, then the person that you get to know isn't the person you will end up with at the end of a year if they aren't "hedged" or "boxed in" to prevent growth of any kind. I think (unfortunately) this happens with a lot of people because the economics of rent and food and daily living rise to such a pricey extent that it saps all of their money. Then they just refer to themselves as "surviving." Their world becomes static and small. There is no bodybuilding. There is no traveling or expanding hobbies to things like woodworking. It is these people who don't change. Day in, day out, what they do remains the same because they have no other choices. Maybe this is the reason as to why it is easier to make friends when you are young: you don't have a lot of other choices of things that you can do to improve your life. You are kind of stuck and dependent on your family to live and you just don't get to do anything that your family doesn't allow. So you're like a "root bound" plant. However, the silver lining is that because you are root bound, you don't grow, and your "sameness" makes it easy for others to know you and befriend you. Once you escape the "root bound" condition and turn into a kudzu vine that goes every which way it wants and crushes everything in its vine-like tendrils...then that is a plant that is much harder to get along with and so...fewer friends if any. I mean...who wants to be in a relationship with a kudzu vine? People like stability, sameness, and you just don't get that from young people. Maybe...just maybe...you can get it from people over fifty, because by then, we can assume that they are many years into their kudzu growth and are now approaching a vine that won't grow all that much in the remaining years it has left. That stability seems to be why so many people can find a much more fulfilling "second act" later in their lives.

Anyway, these are just my observations based on living with people for the first time in decades (a choice I made a year and a half ago to answer burning questions and to make some money while I was at it). Remember, my roommate "Beta" doesn't believe that "Wisdom" actually exists. So don't take this essay as "wisdom" if you happen to agree with him. Maybe it's just the observations of a person who likes to "people watch" while trying to ascribe meaning to whatever it is that he sees.