So you have an idea where you want to live, you even know what the apartment should look like. It should have a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom that can comfortably take your bed, your bookshelf and maybe even your sewing machine. Preferably a self con because you own a cat, actually 3 but you are giving one out, so 2.
But you can’t find that apartment. It’s either the location is inconvenient, the room has just a tiny window or the agent’s total package is ridiculous, more than your budget. I’ve visited more than 15 apartments and now, I’m asking myself, if I don’t like all the houses, does it mean I’m the problem?
Maybe my standard is too high, my taste too high so now I’m lowering it. I still want an apartment with my own bathroom but now, I don’t mind if my cats don’t get to move with me, now, I don’t mind leaving my sewing machine behind, now, I don’t mind if electricity isn’t that good, I just want a place. It’s crazier when you involve someone in your house hunt and they find one for you and you don’t like it and they think you’re ungrateful and you feel guilty and you want to just take the house so you won’t offend them.
When you are desperate, settling is usually the go-to option, you start to trim down your standard until you’re left with a skeleton, nothing like your original interest.
In my case, I get told I’m not that desperate, and maybe that’s why I haven’t settled yet. I think the worse part is rethinking and readjusting your taste. You start to wonder if you are asking for too much or if you are the one with a problem, for wanting the ‘impossible’?
Now I understand why people settle, honestly it was hard for me grasp before. Why marry someone you aren’t exactly attracted to just because you want to get married? I don’t want to make this post about marriage but there are many stories about people ‘settling’ for their spouses. I’ve always wondered why people settle. If you think someone isn’t your match, why settle? Why not just wait considering marriage is a long term affair? Well..
I haven’t settled yet though and thank God this isn’t a marriage. It’s almost as if I’m determined not to settle so that I can prepare for the future, not in house search, but other things. It’s almost as if I’m trying to prove to myself that settling isn’t always the option.
But maybe this determination will wear thin and one day, when I get home at 7pm and too tired to read for my upcoming test, I’ll say fuck it, call one of the 25 agents on my contact list and settle for the lowest of the lowest version of my standard.
“Love, Zyzah” 