To not want to share a room at age 27?

[Tangw]

Every year, our extended family rents a big house and we spend a week together. Always rent the same house.

Growing up, I have always had to share a room with a younger female relative. This hasn’t happened for a number of years because usually someone in the family can’t come for whatever reason, so me or the relative gets to have the spare room.

This year, everyone can make it which is great. But that means that I have to share a bedroom for the week. AIBU to not want to share at this age?

In the real world it is not always possible to give everyone exactly what they want. The OP has been invited on holiday with this group with this arrangement. She can accept or decline that invite, up to her.

There's no bias towards couples.

People, regardless of marital status, are sharing 2 to a 2 person room, as that's what needs to happen for everyone to fit into the accommodation.

If OP doesn't want to share 2 to a room, then it is up to her to source and pay for her own alternative accommodation, as it is her that is unhappy with what is on offer.

(TBF OP hasn't clarified all the sleeping arrangements. If other single people who are compatible to share (gender/age/medical conditions) are being given their own private non shared rooms whilst OP and cousin are expected to share, then it is reasonable to ask them to take their turn at sharing. But if everyone is 2 to a room, OP needs to make other arrangements if she doesn't want to also be 2 to a room).

Oh it really is. I was long term single and trust me these attitudes are soul destroying.
The "i don't mind sharing when I go on holiday with friends and I'm married so I know both situations " miss the point awfully.

If you're single you deserve to be treated with respect and it's adding insult to injury to feel like a child asked to share as if you were on a sleep over. Being single is tough and you just need a few minutes a day in private to nurse your wounds during family gatherings.

You just don't get it.

Personally don't think it's weird that you will be sharing a bedroom at 27yrs old with an 18 yr old , it's a holiday and only for a week. Can't you swap with someone else in the family?

Why is being single tough? I guess that depends on your outlook. I suppose it would be tough if you want a relationship.

Can't u just sleep on the couch?

How is a married person going away and sharing a twin room with a friend any different to a single person going away and sharing a twin bedroom with a friend? If a married friend and a single friend go away together and share a room, how is it different for one than for the other?

I mean, actually how? What would be different? Both people are sharing with someone they don't normally live with. Both people will have to make compromises, be flexible and be aware of the other person in the room. Both people are "sharing like a child on a sleepover" (if you see it like that - personally I don't). Both will have equal needs for privacy that they will have to manage.

There's literally no difference.

There are differences between sharing with a spouse and sharing with a friend, but they go both ways. Some things are better about sharing with a spouse, some things are better about sharing with a friend. It's swings and roundabouts. But it does still take consideration and compromise when sharing with a spouse, just like it does when sharing with a friend, and it means a lack of privacy either way.

Funny how the couples always get what they want, eh?

Exactly.

Some people clearly don’t get it.

It's entirely different as it's not tied to your status. Making a single person share is telling them again they have not graduated to adulthood, they are not enough, they have to once again adapt around the lives of the more important coupled people.
It makes you feel like you're still a child and it it takes away the only slither of advantage there is to being single, ie freedom and privacy.

I am married now but always an advocate for the family singles in those scenarios because I've been there.

No one is forcing the OP to hang out with these couples. Why doesn't she organise her own holiday, on her own terms, with whoever she wants?

Do they? They have to share rooms like everyone else. They don't get to pay half price for a private double room each like the singles tend to want (and often tantrum until they get).

They're not "getting what they want", they are getting on with it without making a fuss and not demanding preferential treatment. Just accepting that a shared house with 2 person rooms means that everyone needs to share.

That's the biggest load of old bollocks I've ever read!

Sharing with a friend on group holiday (regardless of whether you are married or not) is not "tied to your status". Single adults are adults - who on earth is saying they are not? I don't know anyone who defines adulthood by marital/relationship status - what an odd idea!. A married friend and a single friend sharing a room together are simply equal, with the same status and making the same compromises and adaptations.

And HOW are single people adapting around couples? They simply are not. Not being given preferential treatment isn't "adapting round couples", it's being treated equally to the couples.

If someone "feels like a child" based on their relationship status, they need to understand this is their problem in their own heads and they need to get some counselling to deal with it.

Being single is tough and you just need a few minutes a day in private to nurse your wounds during family gatherings.

That makes the massive, and frankly rather offensive, assumption that being single is some kind of torment that has to be endured like purgatory before the salvation of a relationship. It’s perfectly possible to choose to be single. We don’t all spend our evenings sobbing into a lasagne for one and tearfully singing “All By Myself”. And I certainly don’t spend family gatherings “nursing my wounds”!

Family gatherings are incredibly tough for young adults who are not yet in relationships and more so for singles who are older and would rather be in relationships, especially those who have never had an established partner. It's a bit different for the "been there done that" crowd.

Clearly none of you have ever lived that. It's one of the scenarios that brings your pain home like no other, as you're once again reduced to the role of child.

It must be different for the single by choice, I wouldn't know. But as a long-term single who hated it, I know that all my similarly single friends hated family gatherings for this exact reason.

I think more singles hate it than would like to admit.

Q

Family gatherings are incredibly tough for young adults who are not yet in relationships

Another massive assumption.

I think more singles hate it than would like to admit.

I think you’re projecting.

Because they're happy as they are, so who is going to make them?!

If I go away with friends/family we get twin rooms, don't see the issue, and I'm much older than 27! Wasn't be keen on sharing with a friend of a friend for a weekend away but I coped.

@Commonsense22 If someone doesn’t enjoy family gatherings for any reason, they don’t have to go. Especially an extended family holiday like this- the OP says that this is the first holiday in several years that both she and her 18-year-old cousin are attending.

This argument seems too black and white on both sides. Of course sharing with your partner is not the same as sharing with a cousin, but family gatherings and holidays are not built solely around couples either. They are built around trying to get a group of people together to see each other, at a cost that's reasonably fair and not extortionate for anyone, and they are limited by the existing infrastructure of places that accommodate that and the capacity/time of the organiser to sort the whole thing out.

OP hasn't been back though.

I'm 56, I have recently shared a room with my mum and on another occasion with a long term friend. It perfectly normal but if you don't want to tell whoever organised it you want your own room next time.
Are you the only sharers?

I'm the single adult who is always alone and always the 5th wheel with my siblings. However, it is one depends on so many things. Does anyone have a private room? Who pays and decides this place? Are there others who want more rooms so how many extras are needed?

I'm also imagining that they could do a raffle on who shares. Uncle Brian is now sharing with his nephews wife and cousin Johnny is sharing with his other cousins 3yo. Grandma Mildred gets to share with her granddaughters bf who is in the trip for the first time 😃

Not the same that's 3 single adults. A holidays with all couples and 1 single adult who gets chucked in the kids room because there single so can get stuck anywhere is the problem not the actual sharing a room what are people not getting

How is it the 'kids' room? It's just another room

The op said with younger relatives