Coed Living for Adults

Wanted: Congenial male roommate to share 3-bdrm., 2 1/2-bth town house with divorcee and 2 children. You get master bdrm., bath and privacy. Dlrs. 150 a month includes util. Peachtree industrial area. Call after 5. Refs. required.

Donna Valentine, 28, lives with her nine-year-old daughter and four-year-old son in a town house in suburban Atlanta. Her income from child support and her job as a sales coordinator at a construction supply company total less than $500 a month. The town house rents for $300, and she needs someone to share the expense. "I just think this is the logical thing," said Donna about advertising for a male roommate. "Most of the women I know are dependent, jealous and competitive. I just prefer to have a man around." In San Francisco, Jim Cole, 27, a divorced project engineer, interviewed both male and female prospective roommates before selecting Lori Rock, 21. "In the past, men roommates have stepped on my toes," he explained. "The male-female arrangement blends and overlaps. I don't want an involvement, and the primary advantage is the sharing of expenses."

Divided Chores. Cynics may sneer that a platonic relationship between young men and women is impossible. Yet Valentine and Cole are just two of an increasing number of people who insist that coed, companionable but nonsexual apartment sharing is possible and practical. Reports Joel Kaplan, who runs Washington's The Roommate Exchange: "For people between 21 and 35, there are very few now who won't at least consider a coed-living situation."

Many young people slip easily into the new lifestyle; they have been conditioned by coed collegiate dorms. Women alarmed by the rising crime rate feel more secure with a male housemate. Many divorcees with children welcome a masculine influence in the house. Men like the arrangement because they feel that the single life is often lonely and depressing, and they--especially divorced men--want the support of someone to come home to without the squabbles and tensions of marriage.

Agencies that help find coed roommates make it clear to applicants that rent and chores are divided, and partners have separate bedrooms. "With the woman paying half the rent, sex privileges are not included," says Peggy Beltran of Housemates, Unlimited, in Hollywood. Beltran advises that both parties state house rules plainly before they move in together. Still, coed living can undermine the partners' social lives. "If a guy and a girl are living together, even if there is nothing sexual between them, it's not so unusual for the guy to be watching TV in the living room in his Jockey shorts," says Joel Kaplan. "If the girl comes in with her boy friend, the boy friend is probably going to think there is something between the roommates." Occasionally there has been. But usually the partners date other people.

Sexual Stereotypes. Coed living does not spell the end of sexual stereotypes. Women complain that they get stuck with a larger share of housework. But both sexes admit that they keep their rooms neater than they would living alone. Says a Manhattan male who is sharing his apartment with a divorcee: "I guess it's a matter of pride."

Some women seeking help through Washington's Roommates Preferred are taken aback when Owner Betsy Neal suggests that they go coed. "But once they try it," says Neal, "they almost invariably like it." That was the experience of Lorraine, a Los Angeles divorcee who shares a home in Beverly Hills with Alan, a salesman. "So many people I know are lonely," she says. "I have a balanced, busy life this way." Lorraine and Alan sometimes double-date. Occasionally Alan reads comic books to her son. He finds that the arrangement enables him to live a "more solid, home-based life." Both want to get married eventually--to someone else.

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