I’ve been texting Chris a lot while he’s been away to keep him updated on all the apartment searching I’ve been doing in his absence. While I have been running all over this city viewing apartments and dealing with brokers for a potential future home, he’s been in London attending Wimbledon and having English afternoon tea with his pinky sticking out. What a hard life he leads.

He texted today and asked if I was enjoying the search and that it seemed like I was at least sort of liking it. Well, compared to when I first moved to New York (which was hell), I like it a lot more for a number of reasons: 1) Then, I was naive and knew zero about New York real estate (how expensive space truly is here), rental anything (broker fees, what to expect legally, etc.), therefore making me vulnerable to getting ripped off, 2) I made a lot less money then, which meant I was more likely to see terrible apartments in the price range I’d set, 3) I had a roommate then who only had income from Trader Joe’s, which didn’t help point #2, 4) that roommate had really low expectations (today, she lives in a building that doesn’t even have a doorbell), so we just didn’t want the same things.. or know what we wanted period, and 5) when we searched while we lived in our maniac apartment in Elmhurst, we had a landlord who was constantly meddling in our lives, so we were never really that happy about our living situation.

Today, I generally have a good idea of what to expect in terms of space and prices for what general neighborhoods. I don’t have a roommate who has different standards than me (in fact, I don’t have a roommate now; I have a husband). I also am not trying to escape a miserable living situation; our situation is great now, but we just kind of want more space. So all in all, life is a lot different now. I’m also more direct and a bit more of an asshole now, so if I think someone (as in a realtor) is wasting my time, I just leave and say I’m not interested. Before, I would have kept entertaining the idiot’s stupid recommendations.

One thing I’ve noticed is that when I say, “my husband and I…” vs. the then “my roommate and I…”, the former gets far more positive and serious responses than the roommate situation. I already expected that. We’re older, we’re married, we’re established, meaning we’re stable. That’s what they are thinking. They also assume we have more money. We’re not just some dumb 20-something-year-old women flitting around the city aimlessly. The more money, the more money they think we will rent at, which means the bigger the fees they get to collect from these management companies.

I guess being married has its perks I wasn’t really thinking about when I signed the marriage license. 🙂