Tuesday, May 12, 2009

If apartment searching is to dating...

Andi*, Elaine*, and I have been searching for an apartment for about a month and a half now. We currently live over a hamburger restaurant that plays loud Fleetwood Mac and Coldplay until 4 am. You understand our predicament.

This past weekend Elaine and I looked at 4 apartments in the span of 3 hours. After this, we decided we had to come home and write down everything we had seen, if only to make sure we weren't overlapping (the craigslist postings "convertible 2 bdrm awesome deal!!!!!!!! 7th/B," was starting to sound a lot like the "3 bedroom awesome deal!!!!!!!!! 7th/B").

When it came to apartments, we had become like druggies that always know where to score. Someone would say, "I looked at this apartment on 6th and 1st Ave..."

"Oh, small kitchen, big bathroom, faces the street?" we would all say. "Yeah, we know that one."

We felt we knew almost every apartment listed, but still hadn't found something we like. Elaine and I wrote down everything we had looked at: 18 apartments in the span of a month (counting the apartment we almost thought we got, but then was so ruthlessly ripped from our fingertips when our management company forced us to stay in our apartment an extra month).

"18 apartments!!" I said in shock at seeing 'our list.' It was at this moment I realized apartment hunting in New York is much like dating. You have to look and look, and look some more to find something you are going to make a big investment in, something you are going to spend a lot of time with. Occasionally you have to rely on other people/websites to help you out with this search. When it comes to sealing the deal, with an apartment it is a security deposit, with dating (and this is so cheesy I can't believe I'm saying it), its your heart! And just to put this out there, unlike security deposits, you DO NOT get that back when the relationship is over.

Elaine told me I was depressing her when I started making statements like, "what do you think breaking you lease signifies?" and "do you think its bad I've moved like three times in the past 1.5 years?"

Regardless, this is an interesting analogy to consider....

3 comments:

Amy said...

Ugh, I used to live in New York and I recall the apartment search as a beating. Judging by my recent history with dating, I'd say there are some definite similarities.

Love your blog!

Mrinalini said...

Hahahaha!this is funny :) actually, the similarities are pretty striking, esp the part that u do not get your heart back :| lol, such is life..

Jean said...

I love the analogy. Good luck on the search.