Before getting started, this movie captures the hilarity of CL: I Kissed a Girl (Off of Craigslist)

Fortunately for you, I actually have a real Craigslist story. This one is about the quest for the perfect roommate. Phil and I had high expectations, but had nowhere to turn. CL was the logical choice. Having been forewarned about the many crazies, I didn’t have high hopes. Nevertheless, I crafted a post that perfectly described what we were looking for.

I hate to have yet another stereotypical CL ad reiterating the same awesome traits that all roommates should have, but given the choice of medium (Craigslist), and the horror stories I’ve heard about crazy roommates found here, I’m going to say them anyway.

Things you can’t be:
A drug addict
A smoker
A pet owner (sorry, landlord wants to charge us extra for it)


Next, a little about us:

Mike, 21 — Enjoys meeting new people, exploring the city and surroundings, cooking, sports (soccer, skiing, frisbee, biking, volleyball), parties, shooting the breeze, a sharp wit, politics, technology, and photography. My two greatest loves in life are food and people, especially when experienced together.


Phil, 22 — Interested in science and tech. Crazy about movies but really sucks at music (an iPod full of stuff no one has ever heard of). Looking for culture and color—do you speak Japanese? Busy by day; social by night.

We both have day jobs, but don’t bring our work home. Actually, we’re pretty much awesome. Hopefully you are too!


And lastly, about you:

Things you should have:
-Good hosting skills (if you have people over, which is great, then you should clean up after them)
-A healthy respect for your roommates and for shared space
-An “A” in kindergarten (sharing is caring)
-A steady income
-Guys and girls both welcome

And Things we like:
Cleanliness (it’s next to godliness, you know)
Intelligence
Down to earth
Chill
Sense of humor (If you can’t take a joke, we’re not going to make it)
Independence
Outgoing (We’re here to experience the city and it’s people, ideally you are too)


Full disclosure:
The apartment is really nice (I’ve done a lot of apartment searching, and this the nicest one I’ve seen in the mission), but the room you’d be staying in is pretty small. It’s big enough for a queen bed and a dresser (with a big closet), but not much else. That said, the room will go for less than $1000; we haven’t finalized a price yet.

Just reply to the post if you’re interested, and we’ll be in touch.

If there were any decent people on CL, I was sure this would find them. 10 minutes after the post was up, we already had 3 replies. 30 minutes, 15 replies. 2 hours, 30 replies. 3 days, 55 replies. It was ridiculous how easy this was!

Due to the overwhelming turnout (which Phil and I initially attributed to our awesomeness, but later learned was more due to rampant desperation), we established some criteria. We wanted a local so they could introduce us to people, we had to be able to meet them in person, and they had to be able to pay the bills. Aside from those stringent requirements, we favored girls over guys because coed living is more fun—everybody knows that.

The responses we got included curt introductions, outright begging, soul revealing confidences, and complete wackjobs.

The most interesting thing in the responses was that a strong majority of them included their sexual orientation, something Phil and I hadn’t even considered—we didn’t care either way, but I guess that’s important in this city.

We found that most of the mens’ responses were a little more terse, didn’t reveal too much about themselves, and were generally pretty useless for personality matching. The not desperate ones, anyway. The desperate ones went something along the lines of “OMGIMMOVINGTOTOWNIN2DAYSANDINEEDAPLACETOSTAY CANIBEYOURROMMATEPLZPLZPLZ!?!?!?!”

Uh, no. You can’t, sorry.

Then there were the girls. Some of these were exquisite examples of TMI, total soul dumps that fell just short of complete autobiographies. One of ‘em must’ve spent a couple hours putting this together—I wondered if it was like a form letter response that she used all the time. Other sane ones, the ones I appreciated anyway, offered a nice taste of personality, a little playful wit, and managed to maintain their self respect.

Next, the crazies. To be fair, some of these people were probably just casting a wide net trying to find anyone that would put up with their “special needs.” The few I replied to were nice enough people, just in weird situations. One couple thought it was a good idea to cram themselves into our small third room. We thought that would just be a weird house dynamic, and to make it worse, at least one of ‘em was unemployed. Having oddball strangers at home all day just weirded me out. Another 2 girls wanted to live there too. That was an interesting proposition…so we emailed ‘em back just to see what would happen. We never did figure out if they were together or not. Regardless, they came off as total flakes and were certifiably psycho.

Shortly after we started meeting up with the prospects we had picked out, Dan, a friend of mine from Amazon, fell into our lap. A good roommate that Phil and I both already knew was too good to turn down, so I never did get to finish this CL experience.

That said, living in San Fran should yield other opportunities.

Wish me luck. Much love.