A New Yorker friend told me once that finding an apartment is like finding a husband: you just have to wait until a good one comes around. Equally encouraging and disheartening in that, okay, there's only so much one can do until something pans out, or, buy me a cat and give me a muumuu because here comes perpetual singlehood.
Until the elusive perfect-for-right-now apartment appears, each and every interaction with a prospective roommate is very much like a first date. You've already exchanged pleasantries via Craigslist postings, merely showing that you can string together coherent sentences via email, you are 23, your occupation, and that you are staunchly opposed to emoticons. So if the person who is soliciting a roommate responds, there's only a quarter of the battle.
Case in point: I visited a fantastic apartment the other evening that I am desperately pining after- great location, excellent price, no rodents or bedbugs, laundry on the floor, and most importantly, seemingly fun roommates. So what do you do when you meet? Are you totally, unabashedly, 100% yourself?
After walking in, one of the girls showed me her other roommates's room: "It's kind of messy right now." Me: "No worries. My room looks like a meth lab."
Does my comment show that I have a sense of humor, or does it instead raise red flags that I know how to turn sinus meds into illicit drugs? I overanalyzed at once as if I were hopefully interacting with a crush. Because, really, I'm trying to show that I'm low key and not uptight about organization to an obsessive degree, but the prospective roommates could take that as I would just as rather go without showering for too long (true) and that I might as well clean the dishes with the toilet brush (also true but moving on...). After some pleasant conversation, even a couple of laughs on the couch in which all, you plus interviewing roommates, acknowledge the potential awkwardness of the situation, you have to go because someone else is coming to look at the space. But before you part, you have to declare your interest: how serious are you about the apartment? "I'll be honest," I said, "if you offered it to me, I'll take it. I feel really good about this. Umm...not that that's vulnerable or anything." I reneged from my overt confidence in the situation with an uncomfortable chuckle, unsure if my interest was entirely reciprocated. "Ok great, we'll let you know next week," they said.
Until I hear anything, I will continue to find suitable alternatives, wait wait wait, check my gmail 218,947 times to see if they've emailed with a hearty "welcome! we'd love to have you and your less-than-domestic tendencies!", and of course, I will not get my hopes up. I will not get carried away with decorating ideas; that's akin to doodling your married name on your Lisa Frank binder before even DTRing. I will not to analyze too much, I will not replay the conversations so I may pick up context clues, nor am I trying to second guess myself. Relationships and apartment searching should certainly be more upfront: I like you, you like me, here's the check, let's live together (maybe not so much in relationships; money complicates the partnership). But after all, I am a girl, and since there is no boy in the picture, I must analyze some sort of interaction, particularly since there are no subtle flirtations or promising texts to account for. What else am I going to do? Certainly not shower.
