07 August 2007

Single, White Shallow Grave

(Alternate Title: The Hunt for Non-Crazy Roommate)
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Moving is never easy, and moving continents is even harder, but the hardest thing of all is trying to find a roommate. Up to this point, I’ve been pretty lucky with my living situations. I’ve always lived with people I knew well enough to gage if cohabitating was going to result in psychotic puppy murder or burying dead bodies in forests. (The exception being of course Katie, who Jennifer had interviewed when I was on holiday in Japan and I only met once I returned with Katie already moved in. I just kept my eyes well away from her stilettos and everything worked out lovely. And at least I knew that if I ever ended up pinned to kitchen floor with a chef's knife through my shoulder, I could blame it all on Jennifer's poor judgment of character).

With my move to France, however, I'm completely in the dark; potentially moving in straight in from the airport with a person I've never even seen. It's a freaky thought (added to all my other freakouts and panic-attacks regarding my move). That added to the quote-unquote "Old-World charm" of Parisian apartments (e.g. toilet in kitchen, no kitchen at all, common bathroom only accessible through a bedroom) has made my apartment hunt a troublesome affaire. And an expensive affaire too I might add – average price for shared accommodation is around 600€ (+875$ Canadian).

I thought I had something sorted out; decent price, nice area – but then the roommate guy mentioned that going to church is a part of his Sunday routine. Now I'm sorry, but a young gay guy who goes to church is just weird, and it made me worry about spill-over weirdness into other areas of the living situation. So I kept looking and thought I found something cheap and still in a good neighbourhood and was all set to sign on the dotted line when it was mentioned that access to the first bedroom is only though the second bedroom and constant traipsing through is required. Kind of a deal-breaker (and his picture made him seem a little seedy). So I’m back on the hunt. Grumble.

Any quick and easy hints on how to judge a person in a few short emails? All advice welcome.

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10 comments:

Tokyo Tintin said...

This is my 100th blog post incidentally. Yeay WTTMB!

Anonymous said...

100 posts of fun!

jolie-chan said...

woot woot!!

congrats dan!!

as for the roomate thing...did u try gay websites like gay.com france...i remember people always looking for roomates when i used to use it...

Anonymous said...

congrats sweetie!!

ps gay churchgoers give me hives. why don't you just go and get electro-shock therapy to 'cure' you? i'm sure it's quicker and less painful.
btw did you ask what kind of church he goes to? cos that could be a deal maker. if, for example, it's the Church of Scientology then that's cool. you could go along and get your Thetans examined, pay some money to Xenu and, et voila!, finally have that crack at Tom Cruise next time he's in France! you know that he's up for it, considering that he's "The Biggest Homo in Hollywood" and all. uh oh, i can sense TC's litigious lawyers bearing down on your blog....gotta go.
ps Save Katie!!

Tokyo Tintin said...

Jolie-kun; I went on gay.com, but had trouble knowing where to look for possible roommate listings. Any advice?

Jase; One would assume that, being France, it is a Catholic church that dude is going to. Now I'm all for cultural difference everything, but that is just plain whack!

Michael Motor-Cyclorama said...

YEAH 100!
As for the roomate situation. I hope you don't end up with my current roomate...little red ants that have found their way into my dorm room and are taking over. ARGH! I think Joel's suggestion is good. Gay.com is likely a good place.

Tokyo Tintin said...

Jase; as an addendum, as per my blog stats counter, I just had a visitor to the blog from Richmond, Queensland. Is that the ass-end of nowhere or what? I've never even heard of it — and for a geography nerd like me, that's saying a lot!

Anonymous said...

Well, I wouldn't say you didn't know me at all. Between the two of you, you did ask about 10,000 somewhat ridiculous questions. But now I wish I had come after you with a butcher knife - it's always fun to blame Jennifer!
Katie

Tokyo Tintin said...

I also had a visitor from Saudi Arabia who surfed on through a Google search for gay stuff. How wacky is that?

Jennifer said...

Don't worry you were plenty weird enough that Dan gave me dirty looks several times a week the whole time we lived together, what with your gun-toting and your fluff eating.
I'd say that avoiding religious types is the number one rule of apartment hunting. If I ever have to interview roommates again, that will be my first question. If this guy was going to some kind of fun, gay church then he would have said, yeah I go to church on Sunday, but it's not how it sounds.
As for walking through one bedroom to get to the other... if you're in the bedroom that isn't a through-way, is it such a big problem? If the roommate is gay, you might just end up sleeping with him anyway, and then it's no problem at all.