Despite the historical associations of shared living with economically and socially marginalised populations, contemporary sharehouses in Japan are seen and marketed as a new foreign lifestyle import that offers an alternative to living alone or in the family home. Based primarily on nine months of intensive fieldwork during residence in a sharehouse, interviews with sharehouse professionals, and discourse analysis of marketing materials, the present work discusses the gaps and consonances amongst the promises set forth in sharehouse marketing, my housemates' desires and expectations, and the realities of living with strangers for the first time and in the absent a template for social etiquette. The thesis considers the contemporary 'sharehouse boom' in the context of social and economic change. It considers what the desire for an experimental lifestyle indicates about young people's beliefs about their personal futures and the future of Japanese society, and considers the extent to which their desires and expectations are fulfilled.