he's just not that into you

i know that it is a great writing cliche to say that "___" is just like dating! seriously, it is just like a relationship! but i can't help it, and here i go being trite, commonplace and hackneyed: trying to find an apartment in new york is just like dating.

1. you answer ads on craiglist. i've had more than one missed connection with a cute apartment drenched in sunlight and newly renovated all for just $1200/month (no brokers fee!) just off the f train. it's about as much a fantasy as the idea that that cute hipster was really eyeing you on the L train monday morning.

2. you find yourself dressing up for the occasion. sometimes i think "yes, jeans and sneakers! i'm a casual girl, no need to pretend i'm fancier than i am! i'm hip like this neighborhood!" and then sometimes i think "better put on those pearls, i want to look like i can afford this place." (well, fake pearls. but it was the UES.) i put as much, if not more, thought into what i wear to look at apartments as i ever did back in my datin' days. (i think about what i wear around s, too, but let's face it: he is as impressed as he will ever be.) and on days when i have to go straight to viewings after work, i am concerned about what i am wearing, and if it is good enough. seriously.

3. you wait by the phone. these landlords and broker, oh they promise to call you back. but they don't. not for minutes, sometimes hours (occasionally days), toying with you as you wait breathless by the phone. or the gmail. seriously, i can't stop checking my gmail. but that might not be new.

4. you do things that are out of character. have you ever met me? i love to sleep. i value sleep higher than most other things in life, and this morning i got up to look an apartment at 9 am before work, when normally i would roll out of bed at 9:10 (cursing the fact that i had overslept, yes. but that is beside the point.) last saturday i dragged s into manhattan to look at apartments on the man's one morning off. we skipped bagels, that is how serious i am.

5. sometimes it's not you, it's them. sometimes the apartment has just been rented. sometimes it gets rented as you are deciding. sometimes you fall in love with a perfect no-fee park slope beauty and four hours later when you call to write a deposit, it has just been deposited-on. you have been deposited-on. and even though it's them, it still hurts.

6. you question if they like your for your money. we work hard for our money, s and i, but the fact remains that we are broke. we have stellar credit (or at least i do), and earn enough each month to pay what we are looking at, but the fact is, we are young and underpaid and if we earned the 40x the rent they require, the rent we think we can pay, well, we'd be looking for nicer, more expensive apartments. which means we have to deal with guarantors and long credit checks, and i totally get it. if i were a landlord, maybe i wouldn't want to deal with it either.

7. you're totally smitten. apartment-hunting is my new workday fantasy; i dream about finding a floor-through brownstone apartment on president street in the slope, just waiting for us to move in. it's all i talk about, too. i bet my friends are rolling their eyes about me and my new love, the one bedroom.

8. you're always a bridesmaid, never a bride. eventually you start to feel like the apartment spinster, as if everyone else has found a place, and you will be left out in the cold, living in the park with your twelve cats and hair curlers, going to bed every night with a good book, your friends politely ignoring your invites to imaginary housewarmings. "poor m, they will say. she was such a nice girl, until she fell in love with that flashy downtown condo (who took up with that i-banker), and then it was all over." i'm starting to feel a little panicky (though s, ever the rock of logic, reminds me that we have a month), a little like it will never happen for me.

9. you consider the last resort: an arranged marriage. young and naive, i thought i could find our dream apartment online by myself, without paying one of those "broker fees" i kept hearing about. the truth is, you see more and better apartments with a broker, which costs between $1800-4000 (yes, i too choked on my own whatever when she told me that.) but the more i look at random things i have found on cl and beyond, the more i think that maybe there is something to the broker after all.

i know all this sounds crazy, but just like dating (seriously, it is just like a relationship!), i have begun to doubt myself. i can't sign a lease on my charm and batted lashes alone, and the longer it takes, the more i worry. i just have to remind myself: i found my s, i will find my apartment, we will make it a home, and i never have to move again, if i don't want to. those twelve cats will have to squeeze in however they can.