"How much do you pay for rent?" is a question I'm always ready for when friends form out of town come to visit me in NYC. Hell, I'm ready for it even when people who I know in the city come to my apartment. It's also a question you're always prepared to answer at every party you attend because, in New York, rent is life. It determines how often you can go out for drinks, how often you can order Seamless and how much of every paycheck you can spend on fire jawnz. Which is why this story in The New York Times about a 22-year-old photographer finding an apartment in Greenwich Village makes me want to gouge my fucking eyes out.
In short, English 22-year-old photographer moves to New York, roughs it by moving around and living out of suitcases with friends and acquaintances until going on a full turbo apartment search for the perfect spot. The ensuing paragraphs are about the most Times paragraphs ever written. He doesn't want a one-bedroom in the $2,000 range because that's not realistic, so he settles on a two-bedroom for $3,700 on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. Wait, what? Dude was even looking at a two bedroom condo in Tribeca at one point in time, but found Canal street was a bit too busy for his tastes. What the fuck is even going on, fam?
The biggest issue here is that we have little to no background on the searcher, Rowan Papier. It says he's a photographer and has worked on a spread for Vogue Australia and interned for David LaChapelle and Bruce Webe at one point, but aside from that, how are we supposed to believe that he can afford his rent? Maybe I'm being unrealistic and a bit pessimistic, but JESUS FUCKING CHRIST. He's "lived frugally," but that usually means going out three times a week with $50 bar tabs and ordering take-out 5 times a week for someone his age. And, like, once you factor in homeboy's antique/custom furniture bill, the likelihood that he's getting a little extra help from his parents or a sugar daddy increase exponentially. If he can handle it, props to him because I wasn't at that point in my life at 22. Now, all he needs is to get some better interior decorating taste and take that GIGANTIC FUCKING PORTRAIT OF HIMSELF off the wall. Is there anything more conceited than that? Actually, there is: wearing a hoodie with your face on it.
