For years, I used to be fond of telling people that looking for an apartment was just like dating.
I would tell them the story of the first time I looked for an apartment in New York City. Oh, the treasures I saw. The apartments with bathtubs in the kitchen. The railroad apartments that realtors tried to pass off as two-bedrooms. ("Just put up a curtain!") The peeling paint, the chipped floors, the weird stains.
I was in a rush then, as my soon-to-be roommate was coming back from California and expected me to have rented a place for her to move into. The time period for this was oh, about a week. (Our previous apartment plans had abruptly fallen through. Story for another day.) And I needed to get out of the apartment I shared with four strangers on the Upper West Side, which I'd found in the Village Voice under "Shares." The only roommate whose company I enjoyed was the one who didn't speak English. Yet another story for another day.
So there I was, taking two- and three-hour lunches -- because my boss was helpfully in Paris that week -- to run from midtown down to Brooklyn, a borough with which I had zero familiarity, and be taken by realtors around to these places that filled me with, if not despair, then discomfort and then a growing resignation:
Step 1. Gasp. I can't live here. Are there no doors anywhere? And wow, that was ... a lot of stairs.
Step 2. I'm just going to ignore that stain over there. Maybe it's coffee.
Step 3. Well, I ... guess I could take a shower in the kitchen. If I'm desperate. Which maybe I am.
And then, as the story has grown into legend, I walked into the place that would become My Apartment, and everything changed. It was big. It had real rooms, with real doors. My heart lifted, my complexion cleared, I swore I heard angels. I just knew. And this was before I saw the washer and dryer, at which point I nearly cut myself grabbing for a pen and said, "Can I write you a check right now?"
Yes, this apartment, my huge rent-controlled two-bedroom with the washer and dryer in a beautiful tree-lined area of Brooklyn, would end up being the love of my life, lasting longer -- at 16 years -- than any romantic relationship I've ever had. I went through five roommates before finally kicking the last one out and luxuriating in that place all by myself. But I couldn't ever leave. It was love, I told people, just like in dating. I had contemplated all those other, poorer alternatives but I didn't settle, and I didn't cave, and I ended up ... happy.
My friends were all jealous, and I told them my little parable, and I sagely informed them that it was all about holding out for The One, and recognizing it when you find it. I told them that story when we were talking about real estate, but I told them that story when we were talking about relationships, too. It was always well received. I mean, I had a washer and dryer, so I had clearly figured this shit out.
Keep in mind I was 23 at the time.
Flash forward to a few weeks ago, when I suddenly had to find an apartment in, let's see, a week. Sound familiar? The difference is, 17 years ago, I had a job -- a low-paying one, but a job nonetheless. Realtors found out what I made, requested a guarantor, which I supplied; and they had no problem dealing with a guarantor from out of state.
This time, however, I do not have a job. And rents have gone way up since last year. Also, as you know, I have no current place to live. I am "between jobs" and "between apartments." I thought it best to be honest about that. But after seeing one early place, the realtor said to me out of kindness and concern, "Can I give you some advice? Don't tell people you're between jobs. Say you're a freelancer building your client base. And don't tell them you applied for a job in Chicago. They'll think you don't want to stick around."
I was taken aback, but it was great advice, which I took care to follow. I embarked on a pattern where I would play coy, not telling the realtor anything about myself until they were finished showing me the place, or until they asked what my salary was (which was often the second sentence out of their mouths). I trotted out the "I'm a freelance editor, starting my own business" line (not a lie, incidentally), and the "but I have a great guarantor" line, to which the response would be, "Are they in-state?" After I replied that no, they were in California, their faces would fall, and I would then spend the next 15-20 minutes trying to charm them into liking me and thinking I'm a trustworthy person.
When they asked where I was living now, and why I was ready to move "immediately," I made up some lie about how I'd vacationed in California after my last apartment fell through, and when I got back I started the apartment search a little late. They raised their eyebrows (I mean, who's that dumb?), but they mostly seemed to believe it.
All of this usually worked, but it was exhausting. I am a bad and uncomfortable liar. And watching someone's face fall as you describe yourself and your work situation is not the stuff of empowerment. So I worked it, I worked it like I was trying to charm a standoffish date. This had the effect of reminding me why I don't like to date.
And here we went, back again to the weird apartments that, no matter how desperate you are, you can't quite bring yourself to embrace. Examples:
1. Realtor takes me into a building in Prospect Heights, which is really more on the border of Crown Heights. There is a bathtub in the front lawn, along with other assorted trash (some statue heads?). The building is also directly next to a subway track. Inside, it's dark, the walls are spidery, and I'm generally getting a sense of decay. Meanwhile, the realtor can't get hold of the super. He's supposed to be in Apartment 1E, but we can find no 1E anywhere either on this first floor or in the basement, and the phone number the realtor's assistant has given him is no longer in service. "We can come back later," he said to me as we drove away." "It's cool, never mind," I said. I still wonder whether that super lives in a secret portal and emerges at night only to kill the tenants.
2. The same realtor takes me to a new construction in Crown Heights. The apartments are about what you'd expect -- cookie-cutter, sterile, lots of particle board -- but the weird thing is that, according to the realtor, everything is electric, including the oven and stove. And they have special pots and pans that you're supposed to use, I guess because normal ones don't work with this type of electric stove. The realtor mentions something about "convection" invection, but he clearly has no idea. We find the special pots and pans (rather, "pot" and "pan"), in a box under the sink, wrapped in plastic. I'm sorry, but this will never work out between us. Next!
3. I tell one realtor how much I'm willing to pay (which is higher than what I'd initially been prepared to pay). He leans on the desk and stares straight at me. "Now," he says, "what is the upper limit of how far you'd really be willing to stretch?" Me: "I just told you. That was my limit." [Face falls.] There is further face-falling when he finds out my guarantor is out of state. "Is there someone else you can ask to be your guarantor, who lives in New York?" he persists. How much would they have to make? "$170,000 a year." Errr ... I consider this for all of five seconds. There is one person I could ask. But it would be awkward and horribly embarrassing and I just can't do it. His face falls some more. "Well, just think about it!" he says. He never calls me back. I am glad.
4. I talk to one realtor on the phone about a listing I'd seen for a one-bedroom in Prospect Heights. In the pictures it looked spacious and great, a rare thing, since most of the stuff I'd seen in my price range were small studios. So we're talking about the apartment, which he's trying to get me in to see, and he says, "You know that the apartment has no door, right?" Me: "Um, what? It has no door?" Realtor: "Yes, you have to walk through the landlord's apartment to get inside. ... But it's big!" He says something about two of the other rooms being out in the hallway, but I am no longer listening. Dealbreaker! Pass.
Finally, I got to the point where I figured that if I liked a place at all I was going to go ahead and put in an application on it, because I was weary and this had been going on long enough. (It had been less than a week, though it felt like months. And my couch-surfing options were about to run out.) So I did, and I did. A real one-bedroom (though the bedroom is tiny), with a depressingly small kitchen -- let's just say I've never had a kitchen with zero counter space before -- but I decided to pretend I'm a chef on some reality show about making gourmet meals with one burner and a sink. And it's in a great neighborhood, near my old one, near lots of trains, close to parks and the Brooklyn Bridge. I'd be more or less paying for location, and that's OK. As many friends pointed out, at least it has a bedroom. Only in New York would I be thrilled, at this stage in my life, to have snagged an apartment that actually has a bedroom.
That afternoon, my application was accepted. Hooray! (And amazingly without a guarantor, because it seems I have excellent credit. Upon seeing the score appear on screen with the realtor, I felt like I'd just gotten the results of my SATs.) More than anything, I was just glad to be done looking -- done running around, obsessively looking for potential matches, downsizing my expectations, making appointments, selling myself, charming strangers, dealing with disappointment, experiencing rejection. It was over. I was off the market.
Or so I thought.
My realtor called. After some initial confusion, it turned out another realtor in her office had spoken to the landlord the night before and secured the place for her client, even though my application was filed first. The landlord had approved both applications, and the lead broker made the decision that the other woman, having made first contact, would get the apartment.
So I didn't get the apartment. And ... I was back to square one again.
Depressed. Frustrated. Hurt. I'd rapidly gone from "This place isn't ideal, but I'll take it," to "I can't believe my perfect apartment was stolen from me! Whyyyyyy meeeee??!!!" My feeling of stability had been whisked away -- again -- and now I had to go back to trying and looking and failing over and over again. Remember that line in "When Harry Met Sally"? "Tell me I'll never have to be out there again"? Yeah. That.
Back to the hunt, where I got rejected on my very first phone call because the realtor stopped me the second I said "freelancer." The next day, I saw a place that was again, just OK (over a busy avenue and only one closet), and as I was ready to put in an application -- these cost $500 by the way, designed to keep you from having the "oh I'll just apply for everything" attitude -- my previous realtor emailed me that the other applicant had fallen through, so the place was mine after all.
Callooh Callay! I ditched my realtor "date," ran down to the other realtor's office, got two massive checks from the bank -- one for the landlord and one for the broker -- signed the lease and that was that. I felt electrified and drained. I still won't believe I have the place until I have the keys in hand and the current tenants are out of there, but in just a couple of days, I will find out.
So in the end, looking for an apartment is ... still like dating. It's just that my views on relationships have evolved since I was 23, and so, apparently, have my views on finding a place to live.
When I was 23, I walked into an apartment where the angels sang, and it felt right, and I was so proud of myself for not settling because that put me in a space where I could end up with my apartment equivalent of a soul mate.
Then I was dumped, and I was devastated -- my life partner of 16 years was abandoning me to become a duplex. I picked myself up and found another place that was nicer in a lot of ways, and could have made me happy, except that the landlady who lived downstairs -- my apartment's mother, so to speak -- kept meddling in our relationship ("No shelves!" "What's that noise?"), so when she broke us up, I felt indignant that she'd cut short a relationship that never had time to grow. Also that I brought all this stuff (furniture) to the relationship, and in return what did I get? A whole lotta unused stuff. And a mouse problem.
And finally, now. I have found a place that I will be moving into on Saturday. But unlike the apartment I gloried in finding all those years ago, now I don't feel joy or excitement. I feel relief. My first apartment was my dream apartment, though I admit that I often ignored the peeling paint, the crumbling tiles, the rat, the fact we nicknamed it "the Cave." This new place ... it's cute, and it's nice, and it has roof access, and it's surrounded by lovely buidings. The kitchen and bedroom are too small, and it's half the size of my old place, but ... it's good enough. It's good enough.
Is that what love turns into, when you get older? You see the imperfections and rise above them to consider the whole person, the bigger picture, the scenario you can live with? Do you take things and people off their pedestals and see them for what they are, so that you're not "settling" as you once thought you were, but being realistic? Do you appreciate what works and then work with what you have to make it better, rather than expecting everything to be handed to you perfect already? In that sense, can "good enough" evolve to being "pretty great"?
Well, we'll see what happens. My eyes are open. Maybe we will tolerate each other for only a year, and then go our separate ways. Or maybe, instead, we'll grow fond of each other, imperfections and all, and we'll share our own memories, and this place will end up being the new love of my life.
Coming soon: How looking for a job is just like dating.
