In this monologue, the speaker reflects on a New York Times article about a growing trend where older adults adopt a "Golden Girls" style of shared housing—multiple unrelated people living together to cut costs and increase social interaction. The speaker explains the concept, likening it to the sitcom’s four women sharing a home, and situates it within historical American practices such as teachers living in boarding houses. He highlights modern marketplace platforms that match potential roommates, emphasizing the need for background checks, preference filters (smoking, noise, guests), and insurance to ensure safety. The discussion also points to the post‑COVID opportunity to rebuild community connections, especially through intergenerational co‑living where younger workers can afford housing while older residents gain companionship. The speaker concludes with a personal note about refusing to pay for the New York Times article, underscoring his stance on media subscriptions.
Chapters
Second big headline that I saw kind of cracked me up because I love the Golden Girls. And actually, my husband is the biggest Golden Girls fan you'll ever meet. We even bought him some Golden Girls pajamas one year for Christmas because we're that kind of a thoughtful family. But this article was talking about older adults turning to Golden Girls housing. Now, if you're wondering what that is because you're a young person who hasn't watched it in reruns, actually young people are more likely to have watched it because they all love Betty White. You had 4 women living together in one house as a way to reduce cost and also to be sociable. Well, that's what they're talking about here, is the new marketplaces that are coming up for people to apply and get matched with somebody as a potential roommate. I think this is an interesting conversation because if you look at the history of this country, we did often have teachers that would live in teacheries or in boarding positions where they didn't have a lot of revenue. They might rent a room from somebody. It was a normal part of society for a long time. We've just gotten away from that in our world that says we need our own bedroom, our own bathroom, everybody in the house needs their own bedroom, their own bathroom, we need 5,000— you don't need 5,000 square feet sometimes. So you realize that this is actually hearkening back to the way things used to operate, which kept us in a pretty good place for a community. Of course, in today's world, the immediate question is, well, who they rooming with? How do you check them out? The services that were mentioned in this article talk about doing background checks and asking about preferences like smoking. Do you have friends over? Are you loud? Are you quiet? I think there's ways to manage this. And I think you actually have an opportunity here to rebuild some of the connections that were lost during COVID when the government told all of us that other humans were a bag of germs. You shouldn't hug them, touch them, or shake their hand. This might reintroduce a person who's starting out in their first job and can't afford an overpriced hedge fund apartment, who now can live with somebody who's in the latter stages of their life and they don't have kids or grandkids around. Now they could have a young person in the house. It can be incredibly healthy. I just say, as long as you have your insurance in place and you've done some background checking. So I liked this article. And I, I think it was in the New York Times, and that's why I couldn't show the whole article because I refused to pay for the New York Times, as many of you would probably guess.
