Sharing Is Caring.

Interaction between roommates is always interesting, both from a first- and third-person perspective. From observing the mannerisms of my friends and their roommates, as well as of my own roommates, one of the more universal and interesting scenarios that I stumbled upon was the progression in willingness of one roommate to steal food from another. The frequency at which a roommate chooses to take food that does not belong to him or her is obviously directly related to the level of comfort that that person feels for the victim. The longer one knows another, the less he or she worries about being thought of as a jerk for something as trivial as a can of SpaghettiO's. This much is a simple enough concept, but when examined through the proper lens, one can read a miniature-scale version of culture shaping itself before his or her very eyes. Once relying on a pure-bred, food-segregation strategy, most roommates (except for those super anal ones. You know the ones.) appear to have a natural tendency of shifting toward a mutual system of communal need-fulfillment. "I shouldn't bother him." becomes "could I please cook one of your frozen pizzas if I promise to replace it tomorrow?" gradually becomes "He won't care if I snag a pizza. He has three more anyway." And even the last of the three is perfectly normal behavior. Most commonly, one roommate will mimic the food-sharing habits of another. "Well, he ate one of my pizzas. I'll just go ahead and drink a few of his beers to make it even." As long as all participate in the dominant system, the amount of food one eats compared to how much one personally purchases should always even out with adequate reliability. Ultimately, and whether or not the system results in being characterized by a communal or an individual nature, the body that initiated the shift in one direction is the docile body, sticking to the lifestyle to which he or she has become accustomed. The body following suit is clearly adaptable and able to work with a variety of different habitual conditions. Then again, one could argue that the follower is also docile, allowing him or herself to be shaped into a system that is potentially against preference. Regardless, it is refreshing to watch as most roommates fall into the same sharing structure as has provided humans with an advantage in nature since the formation of even the earliest communities.