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I was a little bit dejected when I moved out of my 4-person apartment last week. The camaraderie between four dudes in their twenties who live a just a few feet apart from one another is indescribable, and there’s also almost always an opportunity to go out and do something if you’re feeling like you want some company.
Popping into someone else’s room became commonplace after getting to know each other, and I’ll always look back on my time in that apartment fondly. I do worry that the club I created with my three now former roommates is going to fall by the wayside now that I’m moved out. The club in question is called the Chicago Pizza & Boners Club. It’s an all-male club that meets on Sunday nights to eat pizza. That’s it. There’s nothing sexual about it, just a bunch of dudes eating pizza.
But it was time for me to find a place of my own, a spot where I could actually bring my parents where I wouldn’t be worried about them seeing something that would make them shake their heads in disapproval. I needed a place where the bathroom wouldn’t be consistently disgusting and where dishes wouldn’t pile up to the ceiling. In short, I needed a place of my own, but I was in no way prepared for the ways in which this would be an adjustment.
The Smell Of Other Tenants
I moved to the second floor of a two apartment building. The people below me have two, perhaps three dogs, and I can tell because they will sometimes bark at passerby on the street below me and I can hear different pitched barks from my living room. I don’t mind that the couple below me has dogs, but the hallway that we share smells a bit like a foot. I have to assume that it is because of the animals they take care of. The man and woman seem like perfectly nice people, but outside of me leaving some sort of passive aggressive note about their dogs stinking the joint up, I think I’m just going to have to deal with it.
Buying A Couch Is Fucking Hard
The living room couch can make or break a room. I want something with a chaise attached to it so that when no one is there, I can sleep with the television on. But picking out the right couch is positively nerve racking. I’ve spent hours inside of furniture stores staring absentmindedly at sectionals and all manner of couches. I’ve been in my new spot for a week and I still don’t have a couch. It’s getting to the point where I just need to pick one and be done with it, but my goodness is it difficult to do.
Lots Of Downtime
Back in my old apartment, there was almost always at least one other person there when I was. If I got bored of watching television in my room, I’d go to the roommate who was home (who would either be in his room or in the living room) and just shoot the shit with them. Maybe we’d go get food. Maybe we’d go buy a case of beer and get shitfaced. That option no longer exists for me. It’s nice to have my own space, but I’ll miss the spontaneity of having roommates who have the same exact interests as I do (getting fucked up, ordering takeout, and watching action movies on TNT).
I Don’t Have Any Of The Essentials
A rod to hold up a shower curtain. Blinds for my windows. Measuring cups, dish rags, a trash can for each room in the apartment, the list goes on and on. There are a million little knick-knacks that you see in everyone’s apartment. Turns out you have to buy most of that stuff yourself.
I knew that moving into a new spot would be daunting on my own. But when I packed up my eight pint glasses, four coffee cups, three bowls, four plates, and a set of silverware, I honestly thought I wouldn’t need to spend too much on the miscellaneous shit. It turns out that the miscellaneous items don’t usually come with a new apartment. I had to decorate and get things in every nook and cranny to make it look like a home. I went through each room and compiled a list of things I needed for each of them and wound spending way more money than I should have on that stuff. It’s been an adjustment of sorts, this whole “living without three other dudes” thing, but I think in two, maybe three weeks time this place will look enough like an apartment that I can actually have some people over for a Miller Lite or seven. .
Respond
jduda@grandex.co
Looking forward to your “Living Alone is the Best” article in November. Because it is.
Being able to come home and not have to deal with other people is the best. Not having to worry about eating other people’s stuff is great too.
Seriously. No dishes. No other people. No screaming breakup fights right outside your bedroom door. No hard boiled eggs left on the stove for days. No #MAGA cookie cake on the counter. No pants ever.
I don’t need the MAGA but cookie cakes are fucking delicious.
Agreed but it wasn’t to share so I didn’t even get to reap the benefits.
Wait until Duda sees what happens when cable, gas, electric, etc bills are not divided by 4.
woke
buy a plunger now before you actually need to buy a plunger is my advice
Truth. When you need one it’s way too late.
Found this out the hard way in April when a visiting friend clogged my toilet and was shocked I didn’t own a plunger. I now own a plunger.
I miss having space to host an event. Trying to host a 15-20 person birthday party in a one bedroom is next to impossible.
Rent out the complex club house, feels odd at first, but those things are dangerously underutilized and underrated.
I don’t even know 15-20 people.
The down payment on decor is absolutely what breaks you, and its too easy to pick up a bunch of mass produced, poor quality, pinterest-inspired Joanna Gaines BS wall art. Visit yard sales, craft shows, and local festivals to look for truly unique pieces for the same price as the Chinese garbage.
My depressed ass needs to be living with like 6 people. It’s exhausting, but I crave the camaraderie.
#4 is exactly why I’m dreading moving out of my apartment I share with three others as well this year. Having to finally buy a vacuum cleaner and dishes and pots after years of relying on roommates to own them already…daunting
Just sign up for bed bath and beyond. They send out 20% off coupons for stuff all the time.
BB&B is overpriced and low quality. If you are looking for cheap stuff that’s good enough to get you by, go to Ikea. I use their $1 wine glasses daily. If you’re looking to invest in nicer goods you’ll have for a long time, department stores like Macy’s typically carry higher quality goods and they are always having 50% or more off sales.
Ideal living situation is when a fly out for work during the week and only have roommates on weekends
No personal experience with it but a friend of mine made great use of facebook marketplace (or whatever it’s called) when he moved to a new city and needed all that miscellaneous shit
IKEA is your best friend for furniture, you can find some really good stuff there that’s moderately priced. After we moved into our new place, the girlfriend and I bought a ton of furniture there, including an incredible L-shaped couch.
Y’all are living in sin? Yep you definitely live in SF, this type of heathenism doesn’t fly in the South
The south sounds horrible.
Y’all really don’t know how to take a joke
If you have to explain something was a joke, it wasn’t a very good joke.
I feel bad that this place is where you get most of your validation from Cube, and that it’s been that way for the better part of a decade