I've been out of college long enough that people have been asking me "when I'm going to buy a house." Honestly, the idea of buying a permanent residence frightens me. I kind of feel like as soon as I sign my name on whatever you sign for a house, the whole place will collapse. Or I'll hear gunfire or someone will break into my car. Call me noncommittal, but I tend to think that as soon as you commit to something, either something will go horribly wrong, or you'll find something much better. And with something as expensive as a house, that would be very disappointing indeed. But even if I overcome my apprehensions about committing to a house, I can still think of many reasons not to get one.

I would say that the biggest thing I don't like about a house is the responsibility. It is my job to clean and maintain the house, and if things go wrong (and they will) I have to deal with it. I'm a lazy guy. I don't really want all that trouble; it just seems like a huge hassle. Back when I lived at my parents' house, I had to help out with chores like any kid would be expected to do. And I absolutely loathed it. Looking back, I see that the chores I had to do were only a small part of the maintenance required for living in a house. I can't even imagine having to do everything myself. What a waste of time.

The second reason I am opposed to buying a house is that I have no use for one. I'm a single guy with very little in the way of possessions. I don't even know what I'd do with any of the rooms in a house beyond my bedroom and a TV room. And I don't even have a horking TV. One of my friends keeps trying to convince me to get a house because it's such a good time to buy right now. However, I compare it to going to a grocery store and seeing something on sale that you don't really want, but you get simply because it's on sale. You haven't really saved anything at all. He goes on and on, saying it's an investment, and I'll want it down the road and a lot of other junk. But will I? Unless my life takes some pretty dramatic turns, it doesn't seem like it.

Finally, if I bought a house, I'd almost certainly live alone. All throughout college, I had roommates and I liked it. There are certainly pros and cons to having a roommate, but I'm pretty sure I'd go out of my mind living alone. I think losing what little social interaction I have would be depressing.

Currently, I live in a condo and pay about half the rent with my roommate. It pretty much seems like the optimal choice for me, but there's one thing that really bugs me: the neighbors. It's a lot of old people, whom I do not care for - in this case, because of different lifestyles. The old people want to sit around, walk their dogs, play bingo, and complain. I want to play Rock Band loudly into the morning hours. Over the weekend, I and several others were doing said activity and we got some pounding on the floor/ceiling below. I can understand that the people below me wanted to sleep, and I don't have anything against it. However, the freedom of being able to do what I want, when I want is pretty important to me. Having old neighbors tends to limit it.

So basically, my ideal living space would be an apartment-sized building with a roommate, that was not part of a larger complex with old neighbors, that other people were in charge of maintaining. I guess that doesn't exist.