by Andrea Meyer
My only experience with computer dating was a quick trip through one of the more popular sites after a friend of a friend went out with an average of two guys a day for six months and eventually met her husband. I figured what the hell, bookmarked a few cuties, and developed a crush on a guy named BabarBoy from Brooklyn. As big a crush as you can develop for a flattering headshot and a series of pithy yet sincere answers to some banal questions. The second time I checked the site, BabarBoy had mysteriously vanished from that particular cyberzone. I figured that’s the kind of luck I have with online dating and never went back. When everyone was first in their Friendster and then MySpace phase, I went out on five disastrous dates with guys who had seemed perfectly normal in their profiles, and carried on a passionate six-week correspondence with a writer on a retreat in Locarno. I was in a frenzy over possibly meeting The Guy until he returned to New York and we had coffee, and I learned he had bad skin, bad table manners, and no personality off the page. I was so embarrassed by the whole affair, I ran home and deleted every word of our gushing cyber-romance.
Looking for love in the real estate section, though, makes me feel the way big-time computer daters must feel: like the possibilities are endless if only you put in the time and chalk up the numbers. I have the funny impression of shopping for a boyfriend, feeling these men out the way you might finger plums at a farm stand: metaphorically admiring their purple sheen, squeezing them to test their firmness, sniffing for sweetness, eventually buying and taking a bite—or not. I decide I should have rules of conduct, so I write them down, excited to put words on a page.
Rule #1: During the initial phone conversation with a potential “roommate,” tell him immediately that I’m not necessarily looking for an apartment. I’m just seeing what’s out there, because my current living situation is precarious and I might have to move fast. Nothing is definite—yet. This provides an escape route since clearly I’m not really moving in with the guy. Clever Courtney did this during her test calls the other night, and it worked remarkably well, leaving no one feeling dumped or duped.
The biggest hurdle with this whole project is my complete inability to tell a lie. I don’t know if it’s a belief in the beauty of truth or fear of being caught, but regardless, anything more than a little white lie (“My breakup with Jake was mutual”; “I’ll be there in thirty seconds, just walking out the door”; “I’m almost done with my Matt Dillon piece, Steve, just doing final tweaks”) sets my voice wavering, my cheeks burning in shame. I realize pretty quickly that this scheme will require me to overcome this phobia. I have to pretend I’m not sitting in a beautiful new apartment in the East Village chatting on the brand-new portable phone I just plugged into my brand-new, flawlessly painted eggshell-white wall, but that I really want to move into the spare room in some guy’s charming duplex in Chelsea. After the first few awkward calls and some initial guilt pangs, I come to an important decision: It’s time to swallow my scruples and commit myself to going on a Man Hunt (the cheesy Flashdance song has been playing in my head for days). Which means becoming an expert at telling untruths, and fast.
“I should find out if I have to move by next week,” I say to Clarence, a thirty-three-year-old guy who works in marketing and has an alluring South African accent. “Can I come look at the place this afternoon, just in case?”
He lives only a few blocks away, so I tell him I’ll be there in half an hour and rip open my closet.
Rule #2: Wear something cute. Sexy is essential. Whether or not the guy knows I’m trolling for eligible bachelors, I am, so looking good is key. I’m not much of a makeup person, but for apartment visits, I wear lipstick, mascara, a spritz of the Tiffany perfume my mom gave me for Christmas (she’d be happy to know she’s contributing to my quest for both a suitable mate and a higher income bracket). When I walk through that door, the guy has to think, Wow, I hope she doesn’t want to live here, because I want to marry this woman, and it wouldn’t really be appropriate to stick the mother of my children in the spare bedroom.
When Clarence opens the front door to his apartment, I know I’ve chosen the right outfit. His jaw drops and he literally stutters, “H-h-hello,” and proceeds to address my chest instead of my face as he forms the words, “Come in. Please. Yeah, come on in, um, Jacquie.” I say a silent, Woo-hoo! and make a mental note to go with sheer clothing whenever possible.
Now, Clarence is a good-looking guy. He’s got that hip East Village thing going on. Beige cords hanging off his hips. Sweater he’s been wearing since college, judging from the threadbare state of the elbows. Greasy bedhead I find inexplicably attractive. And, as I mentioned, he has an accent that could send you straight to heaven. But Clarence’s apartment is not a place where human beings should be allowed to enter, let alone live. Inert in the doorway, my eyes scan the place: There’s lots of brown. Shabby beige futon. Shit-colored armchair with foam popping through ripped vinyl. Faux wood paneling on the walls. Piles of junk—crumpled newspapers, toppled paint buckets, empty beer bottles, broken Styrofoam, forgotten milk cartons, orange peels so hard they could be sold as guitar picks, a G.I. Joe doll, an unwashed cereal bowl with a trail of ants marching through it—on every grimy surface. It’s Animal House the morning after the toga party, except here there’s a shower in the kitchen, a stall the size of a coffin right there next to the spaghetti sauce–splattered fridge, with a once-clear, now grim, waterstained curtain hanging over the side facing me, duct tape running along the rim of the base, and a bottle of Head & Shoulders perched precariously on one moldy wall. I can’t believe he pays $2,400 for this pit. That’s New York City in the twenty-first century. I don’t have much time to take it all in, though, as my senses are instantly scrambled by the stench: garbage, baked garbage, bags of rotting eggs, takeout, coffee grinds, bong refuse, festering for days, if not weeks. It smells like the streets of New York on garbage day, mid-August. If it’s not a smell you’re familiar with, be thankful. It’s what I imagine that dead body, on, like, day four, smells like. It hits my nostrils like a fist, and I wonder if there’s vermin hanging out in his trash.
In Clarence’s case, there’s no need for Rule #3: Scrutinize the guy’s bathroom, kitchen, and bookshelves ASAP. I won’t bother with Clarence’s. Mess can be dealt with, wardrobe can be upgraded, fashion faux pas tossed while he’s asleep, but a guy who doesn’t mind inhaling filth all day is a guy who doesn’t mind inhaling filth all day. This time I don’t poke around to see if his plants are dead or alive (or if he has any). I don’t check out the photos of his mom, dad, and college buddies, or notice a whole wall devoted to some big-breasted redhead. On this particular visit, I don’t get the chance to peek into the cupboards or glean the invaluable insight into a man’s taste, intellect, and psyche that one can glean from a glance at his library.
I reluctantly cross the threshold into his apartment, breathing very slowly through my mouth.
“Wanna sit down?” he asks, still addressing my chest.
“I don’t have a lot of time,” I say, resisting the urge to pull my shirt up over my nose. “Can I see the room?”
Safely settled in the empty box this guy wants me to move into, where the odor is a bit less pungent, I relax. “So, this is it?” I say, glancing around. “There’s nothing in it!”
“Yeah, my roommate left fast, took it all.” He looks down at his feet. “You know, the guitarist from the Strokes lives downstairs.”
“Neat,” I say, assuming the apartment downstairs is a smidge larger, cleaner, more fragrant. “You like the Strokes?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s cool that we have so many cool people living in the neighborhood.”
“I agree,” I say, wandering out of the bedroom and into the mildew-infested bathroom, just a toilet stall with a rusty medicine cabinet on one wall, a cracked sink, on its edge a thumbnail-size sliver of soap the color of dishwater—Irish Spring, I presume—with blackened grooves running through it, and a shaky, particleboard cabinet on the floor, I imagine full of cleaning pro
ducts and condoms.
“What did you say you do again?” Clarence asks, making conversation.
“I’m a writer and editor at a film magazine, Flicks.”
“That sounds so cool,” he says, his eyes lighting up. “I wish I liked my job better. God, you have an amazing smile.”
“Thanks. Thanks so much,” I say. “Look, Clarence, I kind of have to go. I’ll call you?”
“Yeah, that sounds great,” he says, leading me back to the door.
I hold on to the wall outside of his building for support and fill my lungs with deep, nourishing breaths of fresh, clean New York City exhaust before hurrying back to my place. On my way home, I spot the cute hardware-store boy and his girlfriend walking Buster through the park. They’re holding hands and strolling silently, no need for words I guess after all these years. I experience a sharp pang of envy.
When I reach my place, Alicia is IMing friends on my computer and gabbing loudly on the phone at the same time.
“So, he stands up and starts showing me judo moves,” she’s telling a friend, “you know, standing behind me, positioning my arms and hips, and I was like, he’s really cute! Then he goes, ‘Do you want some wine?’ and I was like, ‘I could use a glass.’ I couldn’t believe how cozy we were getting so fast—”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” I explode in the middle of her darling house-hunting tale.
“Okay, okay,” she says, jumping out of my chair. “My sister’s home. Can I call you back?” She hangs up. “I’m just here for a minute. I’m sorry! I’m going to look at an apartment and going to the gym. I’ll be out of your way in, like, half an hour. I’m gonna take a really short nap. I got no sleep last night, that guy was too cute, I had to drink, I…”
“Alicia, I can’t deal with this anymore.” I look around. There’s a pile of laundry on the floor, random items of clothing sprawled on my kitchen counter, a bowl of tuna that’s turning brown, an open mayonnaise jar. “Look at this shit!”
Something dislodges in my brain and I start picking up magazines, bras, tank tops and throwing them for emphasis, shoving the stuff on the counter. “This is my apartment! Of course I let you stay here because you’re my sister, but honestly, show some respect. I can’t live this way! I need it to be neat so I can think straight! You don’t pick up your shit, you sit there IMing all day, what the hell are you doing with yourself? You can’t just sit around doing nothing.”
She starts running around picking clothes up and folding them. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, really. I’m gonna do laundry right now. Want me to do yours?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Jesus Christ, Alicia, what is up with you? You’re not working, you’re not really looking for a place to live. Why would you? You’ve got mine and it’s a free bed and phone and Internet and food and company. Shit, you’re twenty-eight years old and you’re doing nothing but hanging around these guys who are, like, twelve and live in Williamsburg and play the drums.”
I’m pacing now, gesticulating wildly with one of Alicia’s hot-pink flip flops, which has taken up lodging on my kitchen counter. “God, you’ve got this perfect life in L.A. and now you’re over here dumping your shit all over my apartment. I just—I need to get out of here. Would you please clean up? Would you try to find an apartment?”
My coat is still on, so I just turn around and exit the way I entered, and head for the corner café. I let a glass of white wine poured by my favorite Italian calm my nerves and pull my notebook out of my purse. An ad placed by someone named Peter sounds appealing. I dial his number on my cell. Peter tells me he lives in a “cozy [read: minuscule] two-bedroom in Little Italy” and spends his days reporting for The New York Times. He’s thirty-two, scratchy voiced, funny, and flirtatious. He says there’s someone interested in the room, but he isn’t sure if it’s going to work out and he’s leaving the country tomorrow to spend two weeks on a boat off the southern coast of Turkey and write about it—hello, the guy’s perfect—so if I want to see the place, it has to be now. I’m still wearing the see-through shirt that caught Clarence’s eye, but I reapply lipstick, slam the last of my Pinot Grigio, and jump into a cab.
My cab pulls up to the corner of Elizabeth and Spring in NoLita, brakes screeching to a halt in front of a bland beige building with a rust-colored door. This is a nice neighborhood, expensive with new, overpriced boutiques and trendy bars popping up every day to replace the old ones that are forced to close their doors, victims of the ever-increasing rents. I’m undaunted by the appearance of the building, aware that hidden treasures often lurk behind unsightly facades. I buzz and climb a dingy, poorly lit staircase with two-tone walls that are peeling and crumbling. The top half was once off-white but has been weathered into a rough shade of grime, and the forest-green bottom half looks as if a feral cat comes out every night after the inhabitants’ bedtime to claw at it rabidly. I’ve learned not to judge an apartment by its stairway, any more than the edifice’s exterior: At least downtown, nine out of ten hallways feature scuff marks, stairs beaten by decades of overuse, and cheesy, misguided paint jobs by management too tight-fisted to do it right.
Standing on the landing of the third floor is a tall, hot teacher’s-pet type with short, dirty blond hair wearing faded jeans, an untucked, light blue Oxford shirt, thick tortoise-shell glasses, and a big smile. He’s unfairly good-looking.
“Hey, thanks for rushing over,” he says.
“I’m excited to see the place,” I respond, taking his outstretched hand firmly in mine. In spite of strike one (Clarence), I realize that Alicia was right: This idea is ingenious. A man’s apartment is a reflection of him—his passions, his temperament, his compulsions, his soul—and I am about to invade Peter’s.
I wag my hips as I enter an apartment that is as cozy as he described it. Honey-colored wood floors, exposed brick, exotic rugs, eclectic furniture, a fireplace, funky, multicultural knickknacks cluttering every surface, and a tiny, old-fashioned corner kitchen, someplace Annie Hall might live. Bookcases packed with books: quality novels, biographies, political nonfiction, art monographs—not a testosterone-fueled action adventure or Atkins manifesto in sight. As I scan the shelves, I can’t believe my luck. It’s only my second apartment, and I’ve stumbled upon a smart, attractive, straight guy with great taste. God, what if this is it? What if I meet the man of my dreams on my first day on assignment? That would make a perfect ending to my story.
My heartbeat quickens and I apply Rule #4: If I find him attractive and his apartment acceptable, skip banalities and get personal fast.
“What makes a guy hold on to a porcelain bunny with a missing ear that’s probably been around since 1978?” I ask him as he stands fidgeting in the kitchen, which is separated from the living room by a sturdy bar topped with wood the color of caramel.
“My grandmother gave me that when I was six. Haven’t been able to let it go, I guess. It reminds me of her,” he says as I finger the spine of a weathered copy of Anna Karenina. I’ve held on to everything my grandmother ever gave me, too. We spent a lot of time together when I was growing up and were incredibly close; I became ill for a week when she died three years ago. I’m not ready to tell Peter about my grandmother, though, as cute as he is.
“I read a lot,” Peter says. “Can’t bring myself to throw books out, either. A bit of a head case, right? Hey, do you want something to drink? A beer? Tea?”
What I want is to throw this cute, sensitive head case onto the couch and get to work making a blond, brainy kid with a thing for literature and clutter, but instead I accept a Corona and ask to see the room. First we visit his: chunky, wood-framed, fluffy-white-comforter-covered bed that almost fills the room. No other furniture except an elaborately carved Asian armoire and a small chest of drawers. I run my finger suggestively along its edge. One wall is completely covered with framed black-and-white photographs.
“You take these?”
“Most of them,” he says. “I dabble.”
I study the photos tak
en in places as diverse as Bangkok, Beirut, and Botswana, Paris, Puerto Rico, and the Poconos. He likes shooting children and old people, the two human subgroups I’ve always found most appealing. He notices details. His compositions are unexpected. He’s talented, understated, a pack rat like me.
“What’s your sign?” I ask.
“Aries.”
I move to the window and look out onto Elizabeth Street, momentarily dismayed, but hopeful that some other aspect of his chart will make him a suitable candidate for my heart. Once we start dating, I’ll get his time and place of birth and pass them on to Courtney to sort it all out. Peter stands next to me. His left hip touches my right, making me tingle.
“See that window?” He indicates a dimly lit rectangle in the building across the street. “There’s this couple that lives there. I can see them sometimes in that chair, you know.” He lets out an embarrassed laugh. My cheeks flush. This is an extremely good first date.
“Let’s look at your room,” he says, a clear attempt to flee his bedroom before suffocating under the sexual tension.
The second bedroom is the size of my closet. You could barely fit a full-size bed if you didn’t have any other furniture, but it has a hefty closet. He tells me that the girl who lived there previously was clever with space and put up shelves to the ceiling right over the bed, but she unfortunately took them with her. He indicates where her creation used to be, stretching his arm up high, his shirt rising to expose a tanned six-pack. I gasp quietly, and he turns toward me.
“So, someone else is interested in the room?” I squeak.
He says the other potential roommate is supposed to let him know by tomorrow. He’ll call and leave me a message before he takes off. I start to feel bad about lying to him, recognizing what a terrible way this is to start a relationship. I say I’m not sure if I’m moving yet, that my situation is up in the air, I’ll let him know as soon as my plans solidify. We exchange e-mail addresses.