The Dread Slender Gnome (gnomeshatecheese@spinster.xyz)'s status on Tuesday, 11-Jul-2023 03:58:52 JST

@GalacticTurtle @EmmyNoether One of the previous presidents of Finland lived separately “with” her spouse until her term in office. They both owned a flat in the same building, with one flat being above the other. They only moved in together when she moved in the official presidential residence.

You know, even if I didn’t want to bring in men (which I would if I were single) or didn’t drink alcohol at home, the mere fact that someone else had set those rules would still be a problem. If it’s my home, I expect to be able to set the rules, at least to the extent that it’s possible. And the older I get, the more strident I become with that expectation, rather than mellowing out.

I do think a lot of people drift through life decisions, either because they lack a strong internal compass or because they don’t care that much overall and therefore tend to choose the easily available solutions. But with those people who don’t, the results can be quite different.

For example, one of my old childhood friends definitely bucked the trend in some ways, as she and her husband live in an extension built to her childhood home, with her parents just next door. This is a very unusual solution in Finland, but she loves the place and that’s what she wanted. I on the other hand always knew I wanted to see the world, and ended up without a traditional career, with no kids, and having lived in several different countries and having worked lots of different jobs, only to settle down abroad. This also a very unusual life path for people with my background.
And yet another childhood friend ditched her traditional career in a city to go live with a farmer, they have no kids but happily raise dogs. This friend was fully on track to the typical normal life, when life took a turn, and she had enough sense to move on and not look back.

But you can’t really tell which people are just drifting along, and which ones are making conscious decisions, not by just looking at where they happen to be situated. For that you’d have to really get to know someone, and even then you might not know for sure.