Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: what is a neighbor?

[Stuart Staniford-Chen (stuart]

Dahako [at] aol.com wrote:

> The last time I was living in such proximity to people other than my 
> family (a couple decades back), I was in a very large college dorm, 
> in a social climate that permitted exploring many forms of communication, 
> community and intimacy - including those of a sexual nature - with whoever 
> (or whoevers) caught my interest.  This time, I?m half of a long-term 
> committed monogamous pair in the midst of lots of interesting people.  
> Exploring communication, community and intimacy is explicitly a goal of 
> cohousing -- but where is the boundary that means the relationship I share 
> with someone is "neighbor" or "friend" or "spouse" or whatever?

Thanks for your wonderful post, which sparked my thinking a lot.

I think the boundary between "neighbor" and "friend" is and should be very
porous in a cohousing community.  I hope all of us that have lived in
cohousing have been able to form some friendships there; that seems part of
the point.

The boundary between "friend" and "lover" is where it starts to get a whole
lot trickier.  Let me post the following semi-hypothetical situations (think
of them as extensions to Joani's list).

A married couple has a troubled relationship.  The woman, in need of
emotional support, sometimes talks about her troubles with the sympathetic
divorced man next door.  She has gradually gotten into a pattern of going
over to talk to him after each conflict with her husband.  She is very
grateful for the support and the friendship has become important to her.  She
and her divorced friend feel attracted to each other but neither wishes to
acknowledge the feeling because it seems inappropriate.

Two couples live next door to each other and like each other very much.  Over
time, they start to eat with each other every night that there isn't
community meal.  They are able to tell each other all their secrets, and all
of them seek comfort from the other couple at times.  There is not noticeably
more intimacy or love within each couple than between the couples, though the
sexual relationships lie solely within couples.

Where should the boundary be in cases like this?  I think both of these are
pretty believable as stuff that actually happens in cohousing from time to
time.

Stuart.


-- 
Stuart Staniford-Chen --- President --- Silicon Defense
                   stuart [at] silicondefense.com
(707) 822-4588                     (707) 826-7571 (FAX)