It's interesting to me the different circumstances people find themselves in. Whether it be something that was planned or just a situation one stumbles into. I was at a friend's house tonight. I was invited to stay for dinner and I usually always accept an offer for home-cooked food. I rarely cook myself. In any case, I stood there watching these 3 roommates interact. It was intriguing to me to watch how their relationship meshed so well. It made me a little jealous because I live alone...by choice...but cooking was something they shared. Each has their individual lives, jobs, diffferent backgrounds and seperate living quarters in the house. However, the kitchen was the common area and they have a rather unique pattern for which they share the "kitchen" responsibilities. They will take turns cooking or cleaning the dishes. Not necessarily every Tuesday and Thursday one cooks...more like whoever feels like cooking...cooks. They share the clean up and that's it. I guess after that they will go their seperate ways to their seperate living quarters. All are single, ages vary, just trying to make it day by day. But what I observed was not 3 single people, what I observed was a brotherhood, an urban tribe. People who are not family, related by blood, but nevertheless a family. However, they impose no demands on one another...this is a family entered into by choice. It was comfortable. The table conversation, the home made food. Something not often experienced living alone. This will not make me change my living situation. I'm not the type to really consider a room mate. Eventually I hope to just find a "mate". For now the dog is my companion and I truly enjoy and love her. But there is something to be said for what I witnessed tonight. I may have wanted to linger in that "family" a while longer, but the food was gone, the dishes cleaned, the 3 had retreated to their seperate rooms, and my ever so loyal dog was waiting for me at my home. I was an outsider looking in on this non-traditional family, this "urban tribe" and I was grateful to be included, even if only for an hour.