Hey, baby, live here often?

The 'mating game

by Nina Willdorf

I used to think that finding someone to shack up with would be the biggest challenge of my 20s. But I was overlooking something big, something that's proven a bit more elusive: finding the shack itself. What do you do with love if you don't have a place to do the lovin'? Want to have romantic dinners? Well, a kitchen might help.

In my experience, getting a date has been nothing compared to the difficulty of finding an apartment. And these days finding a mate tends to take a back burner to my primo concern: finding a roommate.

My traumas, I've found, are pretty familiar. In her new book Sex and Real Estate, Marjorie Garber points out that homeowning -- the way we feel about our property and the language we use to discuss it -- mirrors sexual relationships. Of course, she's talking about serious real-estate action, like buying a house. But if a mortgage is like marriage -- or at least like monogamy -- then the quest for a roommate is like dating: a big pick-up scene that replays itself every year as leases turn over.

I've found the rituals to have an eerie similarity. You wait anxiously by the phone. You hear someone whine, "All I want is a little space." The emotions, too, follow the same breakneck trajectory: the rush of anticipation, the discovery of gross incompatibility, the wash of disappointment, and the optimistic return to the fray.

The great annual roommate hunt spawns canny seekers who learn tricks, just as pick-up artists do. Anyone who wants to score that sweet sunny bedroom -- or just plain score -- learns how to sprinkle his or her personal biography with key phrases. The phrases, after a while, become rote.

My friend Emily recalls talking to one potential new roomie. "I assured her that I wasn't looking for a new best friend [see #2, below]. Plus, I'm not even home that much [see #3]," Emily says. "But now, I realize that all I do is hang out at home with my new best friend."

"I really meant it," she insists, laughing. "But now we're proving ourselves to be to be complete liars."

Even if she'd lied on purpose, it wouldn't have been so unusual. In fact, it would have been more or less necessary. Desperate situations (Boston's housing market has a two percent vacancy rate) lead to desperate measures. Just as you must learn to translate "EIK," "HWF," and "cozy," roommate-seekers must become facile with the standard assortment of sporting half-truths. It's like a game; when they say "bright and sunny," you say "work hard, play hard"; when they say "easy parking," you say "respectful of personal space." I mean, why share that you enjoy clipping your toenails in the kitchen? Or that you're prone to raid the roommates' shampoo supply? These things come out sooner or later anyway.

Just as some lucky couples meet when they bump into each other on the T, sometimes the roommate connection just happens. "We just sat around and talked about what music we listen to," says Cleve, describing an interview with a potential roomie. Meanwhile, he gleaned what he could from scoping the place out during the "apartment date." "I could see that he was neat by looking around," he says, "and I was complaining about my roommates' being messy, so I knew that we were on the same wavelength." They really hit it off, and now Cleve is moving in with Jake.

But not everyone is as lucky -- or suave -- as Cleve. Self-salesmanship is a fine art. One that needs to be honed just so.

Here's what I've gathered to be the standard repertoire of shit-talking apartment-hunting pick-up lines used from coast to coast.

#1. I'm neat but not anal.

Translation: I'm messy but not dirty.

This is supposed to make you sound like a low-key but eminently responsible addition to the household. In reality, "neat but not anal" is often just a nebulous shade of grungy. To my former roommates in San Francisco, a group of pseudo-arty types straight out of Vassar, it meant dishes in the sink, but no roaches. It meant "My room is a mess, but I close my door." Or "I [the neat one] spill Hot Tamales on the floor, and you [the anal one] pick them up."

#2. I'd like to hang out occasionally, but I'm not looking for a new best friend.

Translation: If you have cool friends, I'd like to hang out with them too. If you are cool, I want you to be my new best friend.

This is a classic fence-sitting maneuver. You can't say "I'm looking for a new best friend." And, as Angela points out, "If someone said, `I don't ever want to hang out with you or talk to you,' you'd think they were a freak." So what else can you say?

#3. I'm not at home very much.

Translation: I'm not at home between 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., i.e., when I'm at work. Otherwise, you'll find me at home.

It's like the Rules. In order to convince the potential roommates of your appeal, you first have to establish just how little time you want to spend with them. You have better places to be -- more underground parties, crazier rock-star connections. They're not even worth your time. Buh-bye.

Appealing, non?

#4. I like an occasional drink but I'm not an alcoholic.

Translation: I reach for the bottle as soon as I cross the threshold, but I never pass out.

No one wants to live with a prude, but a drooling boozehead who prays to the porcelain god each evening isn't exactly a prime candidate for the spare bedroom either. Striking that balance, being acceptably alcoholic, is key to working this line -- or, shall we say, this lie.

#5. I live by the mantra "Work hard, play hard."

Translation: I work during the day and, if I'm not too tired, hang out with a few acquaintances once or twice a week.

Angela has had her fair share of people write this one in e-mails to her. "What does that mean?" she asks. "It just sounds like a Nike ad. So they're never home during the week [see #3] and then on the weekend they're drunken fools [see #4]? No thanks."

#6. I don't watch very much TV.

Translation: Only Survivor, Dawson's Creek, The West Wing, and Behind the Music. But really, that's it.

If anyone were even listening at this point, this is pretty much what he or she would hear: "When I'm not working and playing [see #5], or being out of the house all the time [see #3], or sucking down cocktails [see #4], you can find me drooling in front of the TV. That is, if you can find me at home.

"And hey! Are those your Hot Tamales on the floor?"

Nina Willdorf is looking for a new best friend. She can be reached at nwilldorf[a]phx.com.

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