Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
OP, You know what? You don't come across as a very good friend. I'll bet if your friends you went house hunting with knew you were judging them and thinking those things while they were trusting you as a friend, they would be embarrassed, hurt, angry, and decide you aren't really their friend at all.
Does your home have kitchen cupboards? Why? What do you need them for? In many countries you wouldn't have them and if you did, you would have to put them in yourself and you would take them with you when you moved out. Can you get a queen or king sized bed in your bedroom? You can? Why? In many countries you wouldn't be able to put a bed that big in your bedroom. You wouldn't even have a staircase wide enough to get a big bed up to room, let alone have a room big enough to hold it. Do you drive a car so small it looks like a little bug? If not, why not? Why aren't you driving something smaller? Because in many other countries, people have been driving little bug cars for many decades.
Using more space, having amenities that even the poor have in subsidized housing as a given, building things bigger, is how American culture evolved because compared to from where most of our ancestors emigrated, it was a new country that had a lot of big, wide open spaces to fill. The space and resources felt endless and limitless. That's why throughout our history we've made everything bigger.
Times are changing out of necessity, but cultures evolve as they do for logical reasons.
I like cats. They are great companions and friends. I wish I could have two cats with me now.
But I live in a one bedroom apartment. I don't know the square footage and I don't feel like measuring it right now, but I'm sure it's not very much. It is too small for two cats to live in. I won't have just one because I work and between work and sleep it would spend a lot of time alone and that would be cruel. I have to have two so they can keep each other company.
So I don't have any and I am deprived and the cats are also deprived, since I would likely be saving them from a shelter.
But this is all I can afford.
I'm a country boy. I grew up in a rural farm town. We had 18 acres, mostly wooded and a small farm. We lived in a large house, but the first floor was all farm business. The upstairs was living space and between six children over the course of time and my parents the space was very small. But we did have those awesome woods in back to escape to. That was heaven.
My dream is to somehow, someday have enough money to be able to buy a few acres out somewhere quiet with a nice house, a garden, a lot of trees and a big fence. It'll be me and some cats and a dog. We'll be happy.
I am not telling anyone anything. I just can't understand the choices that some people make. I am trying to understand, even though I don't agree.
You don't understand the choices others make ? Well welcome to "club human". Fact is, we're all different, we all value vastly different things in many cases. I've personally never understood a new Lexus parked outside a doublewide home, but hey, to each their own as it should be.
Part of the home size issue is what you're used to, what you were raised in etc... For instance, in my own case, my wife and I rattle around in 2600 square foot hime (plus unfinished basement area). We had some friends over who have a 3 year old daughter. They live in a ~1200 square foot condo. One of them asked me if we ever thought this was to much house for the two of us. I replied, well, logically yes, it is more than we need.....but, it's been our home since we had two kids living here with us and at this point........it's just home ! I'm not yet ready to get all logical and uproot my wife and I so we can move to a 1200 foot condo. Maybe some day, but now now.
My home has always been my hobby. My wife and I enjoy working in the yard/gardens, and I'm pretty mechanically inclined, so taking care of out home has kind of been our hobby over the years. We enjoy getting our hands dirty and making thigs look nice inside and out of our home. If we were to move to a 1200 foot condo (so we could be effecient with our space needs), I'd be bored to death and missing the enjoyment of my previous life.
My brother on the other hand is perfectly happy to have a gardener to mow his lawn and trim his shurbs and house keeper to come keep his place clean and tidy. His work/business is his hobby and that is what works for him......however, it's not what works for me, at this point anyway.
Where houses are bigger, yards are smaller. Americans have been pulling in, doing more inside their homes, isolating themselves from their neighbors. Their kids don't use big yards anymore because they spend most of their time indoors, and parents are terrified of stranger-danger and don't want them out running around anyway. Therefore, in those new sub-divisions with the big houses, they aren't using more space. In fact, contemporary lots are smaller than lots in the 1960s-1970s and the houses fill up the lots with tiny strips of grass outside the windows. Grass is bad for the environment anyway because of all those fertilizers, pesticides, and all that mowing and watering, so they might as well have more house if they want it.
I'd agree with that. It's certainly noticeable that an upper-middle house 50 years ago was not just large in square footage, but was also on a huge lot...and was also of unique design. Upper-middle houses in a given development area today tend to be cut from the same floorplan on extremely small lots (compared to the size the house) so that the exterior walls are barely 20 feet apart from one another.
I think people don't really examine their need for more more more more more. Its never about what will actually work for your lifestyle or what is really required. Its about this entitlement to stuff that people see as desirable. Somehow if my house/car/meal is bigger than other peoples, I am worth more than them.
Both of you are just the opposite side of the same coin you describe.
Try some self-reflection instead of focusing on others.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
