The Real Estate Commitment

Even though I am already living with my boyfriend and have been living with him for months, actually co-signing a lease and buying furniture with him is a little scary.

Co-signing a lease means that if I ever get really mad at Re-Boyfriend and want to kick him out, I technically cannot.

Co-signing a lease means that if we break-up and I change all the locks, I then have to stop feeling smug long enough to somehow make sure Re-Boyfriend does not sue or involve the police.

Then there's all the furniture purchasing that co-signing a lease will eventually lead to. Furniture purchasing will make us both more dependent on the relationship, like puppy co-owners but worse. Puppies, though cute and alive, do not generally cost a thousand dollars or more. Which means that joint furniture buying is actually more of a commitment than getting a puppy, and everyone knows that getting a puppy with your significant other is a Very Big Step.

Having considered all this, I was slightly nervous when Re-Boyfriend and I were sitting in our new landlord’s office, watching as the lease was drawn up. But I assured myself I was being silly and instead of leaving, or yelling “AHHHH” I just sort of crossed my legs and twitched a little bit.

Our landlord seemed to be testing me as he pushed the lease across the desk and said, “I wrote ‘jointly and singly’, so if something happens with you two—I’m not saying something will happen, just that it might, you never know—then one of you can go, and one of you can stay and get a new roommate. It’s fine as long as the rent comes.”

If something happens?

I laughed and glanced sideways at Re-Boyfriend, who was also laughing. I tried to give the impression that it was sooooo hysterical that anyone thought anything could ever happen to us.

Then the landlord handed me a pen, indicating where to sign. I froze, suddenly convinced that once I signed the lease, Re-Boyfriend would run out of the office laughing, leaving me with an exorbitant rent to pay for the next year.

I looked at Re-Boyfriend suspiciously.

“Give me the pen,” Re-Boyfriend said in his patented blend of tolerance, exasperation, impatience and amusement.

I carefully watched as he signed the lease before doing the same.

Then the landlord looked at me in this infuriatingly knowing manner and repeated “I wrote jointly and singly so there’s nothing to worry about if something happens.”

I just glared at him before thanking him for his time.

I am buying FURNITURE with that fucker, aka Re-Boyfriend. I want no insinuations that we are not going to live full, happy, rewarding and long lives. Together, with our furniture, in our new apartment, with both our names on the lease.

S. once casually mentioned that she thought she was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome because she was beginning to have feelings of attachment and loyalty to her boss.

I laughed but later became curious--was she really experiencing something akin to Stockholm Syndrome? More importantly, could I be suffering as well?

I did some research. (Read: typed the phrase "Stockholm Syndrome" into Google, misspelled it, and typed it again).

Let’s review the typical circumstances and characteristics of Stockholm Syndrome as found on Counsellingresource.com.

Perceived Threat to One’s Physical/Psychological Survival
My boss tells me, on a fairly regular basis, that I'm going to be fired. This definitely fucks with my head a little bit even though he is "joking."

The “Small Kindness” Perception
My bonus was so small as to not even begin to pay off my holiday credit card charges, but I said “Thank you,” and told my boss “I know you really had to fight for this.” And I MEANT IT. Even more disturbing: He may actually have really had to fight for it. Also, once my boss said “CB, you’re doing a really good job,” and I was so pleased that I almost liked my job for a week.

Isolation from Perspectives Other Than Those of the Captor
Like employees everywhere, I am technically not allowed to read the internet (haha) and am discouraged from calling or e-mailing those outside the company unless it is strictly work-related.

A Daily Preoccupation With “Trouble”: To survive, “trouble” is to be avoided at all costs.
I have recopied a hundred sets of a document because there was a smudge on one corner of one page.
I have gotten as far as the elevator in my office building, then turned around and gone back to Starbucks because I have forgotten sugar packets.
I have very seriously considered baking cupcakes out of a fear of going to work on Monday after calling in sick on Friday. Re-Boyfriend had to physically remove the wooden spoon from my hand.


Interesting.

Fortunately, I am safe since I still have no real loyalty to my boss.

Park Slope, Brooklyn

Re-Boyfriend and I have decided to move to Park Slope, Brooklyn. The apartments are bigger and that was about the extent of our decision-making.

This may sound poorly thought out but I have spent almost every night for the past six months sitting next to my boyfriend on the only available surface in my apartment—the couch. This means I eat on the couch, drink on the couch, check my e-mail on the couch, read on the couch—all with my butt touching the side of my boyfriend’s butt.

We've both begun to hate the couch, and by extension, the apartment and all apartments its size. So Re-Boyfriend and I are moving to Park Slope with its bigger apartments.

I am fairly secure in this decision but there is still the bit of anxiety that comes with leaving Manhattan, even if it is only for another section of New York City.

Saturday night at dinner with S., I found out just how deep this anxiety ran when she oh-so-casually slipped “suburban” into her description of Park Slope.

“I’m so jealous! I love Park Slope, it’s so pretty and suburban. You’re going to love it. I remember when I lived there for a year, it was seriously my favorite neighborhood that I’ve lived in.”

What I Hear:
Suburban. Park Slope is suburban. Park Slope is a suburb where people go to have babies and die.

Then, just to further fuck with my head, S. said something about domestic bliss, or being domesticated, or Re-Boyfriend being domesticated—who the hell knows? I was still hung-up on the word “suburban” when I heard “domestic” and began to fantasize about springing across the table and killing her.

Sunday morning I woke up at 5am with an anxiety attack, and searched the internet for articles about the fun, young side of Park Slope to make myself feel better. Obviously I did not find too many.

The Truth Comes Out

“So are you going to apply for that job?” Re-Boyfriend asked.

“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “I don’t really want to.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know.”

“No, really, why not? It seemed like it would pay pretty well.”

“I’d have to wear a skirt suit every day.”

“So?”

“Well, the only reason I want more money is to buy better clothes. So wearing a skirt suit sort of defeats the whole point.”

It was one of those comments that you think you’re saying as a joke, then you hear it, think about it, and get kind of ashamed of how close to the truth it really is.

John? He Never Worked Here.

When someone decides to leave our company there’s usually never any mention of the person's departure. One day you get an out of office message stating that John Smith no longer works at the company and you realize he still owes you five dollars.

If an announcement is made, it's done only a day or two before the person’s departure date, with a cryptic e-mail sendoff that never mentions what, precisely, the person is leaving to do. The Company doesn’t want us to get any ideas.

Today things have taken one more step towards total insanity. We are planning someone’s good-bye party two days after the person’s last day of work presumably to avoid the risk of infecting Cubeland with news of his leaving.

After two bottles of wine last night, I decided that going to the gym sounded like a good idea.

I don’t think I had enough cognitive power to actually have a reason for this decision. I was just following some strange instinct, lacing up my Nike Airs and walking over to the gym on Third Ave., stopping to have a cigarette and seeing absolutely no irony in it.

Once on the treadmill I felt a little unstable, but mostly fantastic. I began to feel as though I was cleansing myself of all those alcoholic toxins. I was an Athletic Person who cared about her body. I was a Picture of Fitness.

In the throes of my deluded health-fantasy, I pulled off my t-shirt, threw it to the ground and kept jogging in only my sports bra.

Obviously, this was the moment in which I should have taken a figurative step back and realized that I was far too drunk to be using any sort of exercise equipment. But at the moment, all I could think was Goddamn I am HOT. And man, I can run FAST.

This bliss couldn't last long. Soon enough I lost my footing, and began fumbling for the red emergency STOP button. The button was either broken or my hand-eye coordination was woefully impaired. Either way, the treadmill kept going. I managed to stay on through a series of strange movements that were too mad and desperate to be called running.

It was clearly time to abandon ship and jump onto one of the sides of the treadmill. Unfortunately, this move resulted in me falling off the treadmill in a complex series of motions that included banging into the sidebars and kneeling on the running surface.

I sprang up from the floor where I had fallen, my fight or flight response kicking in, and ran (at approximately the same pace I had been running on the treadmill) out of the gym.

Today I have a headache and a large purple bruise on one arm as well as the both pleasing and annoying knowledge that I cannot go back to the gym for at least a month, possibly ever.

Engagement Rings: Part 2

Re-Boyfriend tried to start a drunken conversation with me about engagement rings over dinner last night.

“So I read your post, and I’ve been thinking about it,” he said. “I think an amber engagement ring would be really cool.”

“Amber?”

“Yeah. With a prehistoric fossil thing in it.”

Pause. Realization dawned.

“You mean like a fly? You want to get me an engagement ring with a FLY in it?”

“A fossil.”

“Like the kind you can get at the Museum of Natural History?”

“Well, mine would be more expensive—”

“No.”

No no no no no.

Overheard in New York: Office Edition

Update: Post deleted in a fit of paranoia.

Engagement Rings

There’s no time to prepare. One friend gets engaged and the next thing you know you’re surrounded by people reading The Knot and discussing whether flowers can be "sexy."

Thankfully, S. is still unengaged and decidedly appalled at the recent speed with which our friends have mated for life.

S. and I went out to dinner last night, split a bottle of wine and began viciously comparing the engagement rings of our friends. It was a welcome change from forcing yourself to ooo and ahhh and listen in rapt attention as someone debates the finer points of cutlery.

“____’s engagement ring is so…” S. trailed off, unwilling to deliver the first blow.

“Ugly?” I asked gleefully.

“So ugly!”

“_____’s is okay.”

“No way! That diamond is big but it’s cloudy. Totally tacky and cheap,” S. said authoritatively.

“Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Oh yeah. And I’m sure she’s noticed. And I bet she’s pissed.”

After dissecting several rings, deciding they were all ugly, and repeatedly declaring Not Anytime Soon, S. and I began talking about what we wanted our engagement rings to look like. Or, more accurately, we tried to talk about it.

“Um…” I said. “Er…”

“Yes?” S. prompted.

“I don’t know, I don’t really know anything about diamonds.”

“Well, I do,” S. said. She hesitated then added, “But I’m not sure if I like them.”

We pondered this new development.

“Maybe we could get rings with other stones in them?” I suggested.

“Maybe,” S. said doubtfully.

“You know, I don’t even wear jewelry, like, ever. Maybe I don’t want a ring at all.”

“Please,” S. rolled her eyes. “You have to have a really nice ring.”

“Maybe when I get engaged I want a ridiculously expensive purse or something. Or a trip to Hawaii,” I said defiantly. "Or maybe I don't want to get married at all. I could just live in sin with a baby."

“You get a ring so people like us don’t talk about you behind your back,” S. explained, a bit exasperated.

“Oh.”

It was then that I realized that fear of what other people would say (ie. family, co-workers, the world) is actually the sole factor behind my desire to ever have a wedding, let alone a ring. It was a moment of self-realization that wasn't very helpful, since I cannot imagine overcoming this.