Friends, drama, living in NYC

Clearly, I am destined to be real-estate stagnated for the remainder of my existence.

For about two years, I went through the process of searching for an apartment with an old, close friend of mine. We searched in two states, several boroughs, and eventually realized we were not only incompatible as room mates, but probably as best friends. She decided she was over the concept of living with room mates, at all, hated the mere idea of Brooklyn (most of her friends have their own places on the Upper East Side…the shame!), and pretty much saw me, and all my closest friends, as immature derelict slummers in fashionable shoes.

We’re not best friends anymore.

After that didn’t work out, I attempted to hook up with another old, good friend of mine. A friend who I’d sit over with martinis with at regular intervals and discuss how while friend A and I were having all these problems, we would be perfect together. We’d wistfully plot our perfect co-dwelling post-friend-1 breakup, and one day, our dream finally came true.

Excitedly, she met me for brunch in Park Slope. It was raining, she was sick. She was sort of quiet the rest of the day, but swore to be excited. She programmed agent numbers into her Blackberry. This, I maintain, is commitment. Over the period of the next few months, I would email and research brokers. I’d send her all the exciting Craigslist ads I found. I was psyched. She said she was too.

This morning, after forwarding her an email I had written a broker that had been referred to us, she emailed back that “Brooklyn was no longer an option”. I replied I was saddened and confused that I wasted all this time (that I do not have) when we were clearly not on the same page. I was told to drop the attitude, and that if it was an option for me, it was not a time waste.

Apparently, she’s very familiar with the “I” in Team concept.

It appears I may be “single” again. This thought petrified me. (Will I hit thirty and still be …. living with my parents…?)

And thus, the book that was sent to me was perfectly timed. Room for Improvement, by Amy Zalneraitis, is a great guide to the dark side of splitting rent.

In the book, Amy discusses the whole range of psycho room mate squabbles. It’s a total real and pretty-funny guide to roommate living for the young-adult not-so-financially-secure-to-have-her-own-place woman.

It essentially explains how cooperation can lead to smoother cohabitation. (Something I thus far have not been lucky enough to experience.) Totally based on the experiences of herself and her best friends, Amy delivers essential roommate dos and don’ts, hilarious (and often horrifying) anecdotes, and invaluable tips from experts, and covers such sanity-saving topics as:

* Checks and Imbalances: Keeping Financial Friction at Bay
* Idiosyncrasies or Idiosyncrazies? There’s Eccentric, and Then There’s Psychotic
* Dust Bunnies Are Not Real Pets: What to Do with a Filthy Roommate
* Is That My Underwear You’re Wearing? Sharing Clothes Without Exchanging Blows

This is a book I highly recommend everyone run right out and buy. That is, after giving ME some advice before I go postal on the entire real estate market.

Or just my two friends. Perhaps being “single” is the best plan of all…