Your first week of coliving: what to expect

You will meet more people in two days than you have in the previous two months, and you will not remember their names. You will feel slightly performative. You will wonder whether you have made an expensive mistake at some point on the second evening. All of this is standard.

Somewhere in here you stop being a guest. Usually it is triggered by something small — cooking for everyone, fixing something, a walk where the conversation goes somewhere real. After that the house stops being a place you are staying and starts being where you live.

Cook early. Nothing shortcuts belonging like feeding people in your first week. Say yes to things you would normally decline. Ask people what they are working on and actually listen to the answer. Leave your door open when you are not concentrating.

And do not try to be everyone’s friend at once. Two real conversations beat eleven polite ones.