I'm an introvert, hometown is Detroit. I was happiest when living with my family, although that may have been because of other factors related to being young. I moved out at 17 to go to college, and lived alone for five years, until I moved in with my current roommate. There is no doubt that living with a roommate has been better for me. I find it is much harder to get into a downward spiral when there is someone else living with me. In spite of this, I do sometimes wish I still lived alone. I know it was worse for me, but it was so much easier.
What I want to get people to discuss here is obvious given the title. What has been their experience regarding who and specially how many people they live with, and how that impacted their motivation and happiness.
I don't want to peruse papers on happiness and productivity, because I'm particularly interested in anecdotal tales coming from a Lesswrong sample.
Three pieces of information seem relevant, so if that is okay with whoever comments, I'd ask people to tell us if they consider themselves introverts (recharge batteries by being alone) extroverts, or both. As well as their age and hometown.
The reason I want to have a fuller understanding of this is that I've slowly come to have a strong belief that the main problem with people I know who are suffering, or failing to achieve their goals, is living with fewer tribal affiliates than they "need". And that belief could very well be false or biased.
I'm equally interested in what people think in general about their friends' living situation: "Most of my friends who live with friends experience such and such emotion, but the ones who live with family experience such and such problems with motivation"
as I am in personal experiences.
Following a suggestion about creating topics like this before, I'll put my own case in the comments.