Likes Beer and History (Part I)

People are usually amused but seldom surprised when I tell them how I met my boyfriend. A generic script is as follows:

“We met in a bar.”

“Of course. You would.”

It was the first Friday in March, I’d just gotten back from reading week, and I was at Gert’s. I’d had a paper due that day, so I arrived straight from the library, late enough for the bar to be packed already. There were people I knew scattered throughout the room and two people I didn’t know at my table. It was louder than usual—the engineers were throwing some sort of party, complete with a cardboard robot in the corner—and we could barely hear each other when we tried introducing ourselves. There was takeout detritus on the table, so I grabbed a slightly greasy paper bag and a pen and wrote my name. They followed my lead.

At the end of that night, or maybe it was the next Friday our group went out, I knew the Russian and I could be friends. Except in his unfortunate distaste for football, he seemed to be my dudely doppelgänger, down to the way he took his coffee (black, as is Right and Proper). We agreed that we should hang out sometime, so I typed his name—which I misspelled—and number into my phone.

By the end of the month, we were dating. It happened almost by accident. On our first date, we went to one of my favourite restaurants without considering the impact of the Saturday brunch rush on available seating and ended up side by side at the bar. He turned to me and asked what I was looking for, and I said I wasn't sure. Though I didn’t yet know that I’d be going on leave, I wasn’t looking for a relationship. If anything, I thought I'd graduate in December 2010, only a term behind schedule, which meant that I'd be leaving for good in the near future. Besides, I was still having an open-ended, blissfully noncommittal fling with a friend in the States, and I didn’t want to give that up.

But I liked the Russian enough to set a date for the following Thursday, which proved fortuitous for him, because on Wednesday, I had the Worst Date Ever with a guy I nicknamed—as I texted a friend from the restaurant bathroom, without thinking of the insult to dogs everywhere—the Golden Retriever. So even if the Russian were not a genuinely cool, interesting human being, he would have gotten a third date; since he is, it’s a moot point. He didn’t mind when I stopped in the street to pet dogs, he complimented my ability to give directions (and didn’t care when I laughed at him then pointed out that we were in my neighbourhood), and he found a ten dollar bill on the way back to my apartment. We used it to buy beer.

Despite one major hiccup and a smattering of smaller points of contention, I was pretty sure we were compatible. Because I was still nervous about committing in any way, shape, or form, Siren’s visit to Montréal early in April was timed perfectly.

Siren is one of my oldest and closest friends. She really deserves her own post, since she’s fabulous, but for now, our backstory in brief: We met as kids during a weeklong retreat at Camp Nausea (yes, that’s a nickname; no, I don’t remember the camp’s real name), lost touch for a year or two, then met again and really got to know each other at an art camp. Several years later, at that same camp, we were co-workers and co-conspirators, plotting to dump unwrapped condoms into the pool so we wouldn’t have to swim... but our adolescent adventures are off-topic. The point is, over the years we’ve built a rapport, and I tell her almost everything. I trust her judgement immensely.

Both the day of her arrival and the next afternoon, as we walked to Toi Moi to meet the Russian, I explained whats and wherefores of the situation.

When this story resumes: Siren meets the Russian! And Montréal has good weather in early April, but the apocalypse does not ensue!

The Roommates, and a Brief History of Real Estate

When I chose McGill, I didn’t have a clear idea about what I’d be studying. I knew I wanted to do history, but I didn’t know much about the department or the professors in it. It wasn’t a major drawing point. The decision came down to three things: the appeal of living abroad, the appeal of living in a city, and the appeal of McGill’s particular housing situation. Students are only guaranteed a place in residence for one year, and many—most, even—of the options are not traditional dorms.

For my year in rez, I got my first choice: a single in one of the converted brownstones. The next year, I moved into an apartment with one of my housemates, but that only lasted a month before I found myself alone on the lease. My ex lived with me in practice, but not on paper, and when I decided to move, the apartment hunt was per my criteria and my criteria alone. I found a place I loved and, when he and I broke up the day before our third year of classes started, began living alone both on paper and in practice. I stayed there for two years, the longest I’ve stayed any place since I moved out of my parents’ house, and still hold the lease for it, although I’m subletting it right now.

So here I am in my third apartment. It’s not necessarily a place I would have chosen on my own, but it has its advantages.


Advantages!

It also comes with two roommates, henceforth Flyover and Florida—so named for reasons of geography, although as I later learned, Florida grew up a few blocks away from my parents’ house in Westchester—both of whom I met in the summer of 2009. There’s a photo of us from a party, which I jokingly refer to as “Why I Live Here Now.” The night it was taken was the first time I met Florida, and we talked about sports because that’s my default when meeting new people. We didn’t have another conversation until the day before I moved in. It’s probably fortunate we get along. Sure, he sometimes plays Call of Duty: Black Ops for hours at high volumes, but at least he roots for the Giants.

Which brings us to Flyover, who was a 2007 bandwagon fan but otherwise more closely allied with losing franchises from all over the Midwest (no, seriously, in order of rooting interest: Bengals, Lions, Rams). We’d only met once before the party, and he thought I hated him, so he bought me drinks and we started an ongoing argument about whether the 2004 draft day trade for Manning was a good idea. Since then, we’ve been friends. Whenever I came back to New York during the year, he provided me with a non-suburban, non-dorm place to crash. And he’s the one who suggested I move in when I mentioned that I was returning to New York.

Could I say more about them? Probably. But for now, this summary should do.