I Am... You Need To Be...
I am... you need to be... Are our expectations towards cohabitants fixed and labeled? Have we assigned cohabitants an object-status?
A private place is highly valuable to retreat to and serves as a psycho-hygienic counter-balance to the bustling urban public spaces. However sharing private space is for many people a necessity at some point in their life. No question, choosing the perfect roommate is quite an endeavor. Within densely populated urban areas a certain pattern of communication has emerged in order to deal with the complex task of finding the right roommate-match and save time and money on both sides of the enterprise: the "Room Renters" and "Room Searchers". The process is to articulate in the ad what the Renter or Room Searcher is looking for. These ads are typically published on the internet. One main pool, which serves as the data source for my project I AM... YOU NEED TO BE... is the platform, craigslist, which allows anyone to post ads (rooms / shared) free of charge and without any limits on the word count. It is thus a perfect opportunity for the renter to state exactly what he/she is looking for in a potential roommate and at the same time to advertise their place and make him/her look enjoyable to live with.
A stranger is going to move into your private space. You want to make sure that the boundaries are stated right away. Being most descriptive about your expectations will hopefully keep the creeps and lunatics away. Yes, this is definitely one way to think about it. But I am more interested in how the ads are constructed and why they are written the way they are. What is expressed and typical for all these ads regarding profiles of the self and encounters of the potential roommate?