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From: gadfly@ihuxn.UUCP (Gadfly)
Newsgroups: net.singles
Subject: Re: Living alone/with nonrelated adults
Message-ID: <1165@ihuxn.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Sep-85 22:17:01 EDT
Article-I.D.: ihuxn.1165
Posted: Tue Sep 17 22:17:01 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 19-Sep-85 04:02:05 EDT
References: <194@prls.UUCP> <1155@vax1.fluke.UUCP>
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--
[Someone--I came in late]
> >That is, how can we spend close to
> >appropriate amounts of time/money without expecting everyone
> >to bend over backward to be fair?

[Peter B]
> It is called trust.  We use it at our house and it works very well
> about 90% of the time.  We tried keeping track of things but it just
> was too much of a hassle, our policy is if you want to eat something
> buy it - if you eat something that someone else bought and think you
> should replace it you should - and if someone cooks you should
> probably clean.

Good advice!  For all the co-operative situations I've lived in, which
comprise about 20 years, all the bookkeeping and work job charts
failed (sooner or later) to impose from outside what has to come from
inside.  Food was always *the* problem among us plebians with patrician
tastes, if not faddish diets.  The one rule that always worked--far
better than dividing the fridge into individuals' little stashes--was
"Pay for what you eat.  If you feel you're being taken advantage of,
eat more or pay less." 

It's amazing how much "oppression" is simply lack of trust.  The hard
thing to do is separate trusting someone from liking them.  You don't
have to like who you live with (though you'd certainly rather), but you
do have to trust them.  The problem usually surfaces from the other side
--people whom you like but turn out to be untrustworthy.  If you can't
separate the concepts, you'll really get taken advantage of, because you
won't bring yourself to believe that such a nice person is so
undependable.
-- 
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