Cohousing-L Mailing List: Disinclination to cooperate

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

Kay Argyle sent a long message about the demise of their community meals and
it had this paragraph in it:

When the community offered compromises (like tucking a roast pig behind a
screen for a big neighborhood party), but wouldn't cater to them (like
telling the neighbor who cooked the pig we didn't want it), they quit
attending potlucks and parties, and (due to a disinclination towards
flexibility in other areas as well) after a while dropped out of nearly all
other community activities.  

This is a classic values conflict, where somebody insists their values have
to be applied to everyone else. This is sometimes complicated by other
non-cooperative behaviors and usually leads to the "offended" person
eventually moving out, often to the relief of the more cooperative people.
Unless the values in question are explicitly agreed to as stated community
values, projecting them as expectations upon the community is not
reasonable.  One way to deal with this is make the case explicit. Bring it
up at a meeting as a proposal for an agreement. If there is no agreement,
then it is explicitly NOT a community value. Sometimes in the course of
going through this, values are examined and compromises can be found.
However, sometimes folks will make a do this or I leave emotional hostage
play.  The best course in this case is to smile, be kind at their lack of
cooperative ability but be firm, and allow them to leave with grace.
Community living does not work for everybody, and sometimes people just end
up in the wrong place and did not know any better. Its not your fault or
theirs that they ended up in the wrong community, and the experience
benefits everybody...eventually.

Rob Sandelin
17 Years at
Sharingwood Cohousing
Snohomish WA