Ian works the counter at the bagel shop. The shop is around the corner from my hotel. I went there this morning because I had run out of oatmeal and wanted something different for breakfast. Ian is friendly and blends the right mix of curiosity and salesmanship. He picks up on details (he asked me about the hat I was wearing) and provides good customer service – he said if I move to the neighborhood they do a discount program for the regulars. He gave the guy in front of me an extra tub of cream cheese. Ian likes to hook people up. Ian and I talked about some of the different neighborhoods. He likes this area because it’s a little further removed from the homeless issues (though there was someone sleeping next to a shopping cart about fifty feet away from the bagel shop). Ian said he used to live in East Bay (a large section that covers two different counties and includes Oakland, Berkeley, Richmond, Fremont, Hayward, and Walnut Creek). He said he used to think it wouldn’t be a big deal to cross the bridge regularly, but now that he’s in the city he doesn’t cross the bridge.
That’s something I’m learning about the city: people seem to get to know each other at the neighborhood level and tend to stay at the neighborhood level. They also seem to have strong opinions about the other neighborhoods. One woman I spoke with said the neighborhood where I’m currently staying is bro-ey (full of bros). I can see some of that. Another guy I talked to said the bar we were at (in this bro-ey neighborhood) is where a lot of older, wealthy guys come to pick up young marina chicks and the marina chicks go along with it hoping to cash in. I have seen the older, monied crowd around. More than one person has told me that people don’t leave their zip codes – which makes sense when each neighborhood has most of the things a person would need (restaurants, bars, bodegas, coffee shops, and grocery stores/markets). And because apartments are small and salaries are reasonable, the restaurant scene does well. According to John (the guy from the bar), nobody cooks (or at least his girlfriend doesn’t cook). Personally, I like to cook, and having gone out for dinner nearly every night for the past two months, I miss cooking. I can’t wait to make bolognese again.
Hearing these things from locals supports some of my caution (and hang-ups) as I try to pick a place to live. I was beginning to think it’s silly to worry about whether I’ll want to cross the bridge – but then I met Ian. I was beginning to think it’s silly to pick a neighborhood that has a variety of dining options, but then I met John.
As I’m searching, I’m beginning to realize that diversity and options are important to me (even though they tend to paralyze me). There are a few cool neighborhoods that have lots of restaurants and shops, but they’re all the same flavor. The Mission is a little on the hipster side with heavy Latino roots – it has a lot of Mexican restaurants. Chinatown, unsurprisingly, has a lot of Chinese restaurants. Japantown has well… you get the point. I like those cuisines, but none of them enough to want it as my primary option. And what I think I need to figure out (the quintessential question) is: is this a place I want to live every day, or is it a place I’d like to visit from time to time?
As for not leaving the zip code, I’ll have to make it a point to not fall into that trap. Sure, I like to make myself a regular at places. In every place I’ve lived, I’ve had my favorite spots (coffee shops, restaurants, bars, and parks). And I can be just as lazy as the next person and use the smallest barrier as an excuse not to venture outside of my comfort zone (I hate the parking over there, I don’t want to drive the bridge, there’s a slight breeze and I’m cold, that tiny cloud looks threatening). But, I also know that in almost every place I’ve lived, I’ve used the excuse of a nice day to go for a walk (Philly, Yardley, Memphis, even State College). So long as I don’t have major time constraints, anything within a one to three mile radius feels like it’s fair game. In theory, this should give me tons of options and make the decision process easier. In theory.
The nagging piece about this entire process is the question, “but how will I know?” To some extent, I’m trying to take into consideration things I can’t possibly take into consideration. I find myself wondering what if the commute to work sucks or the drive to friends/girlfriend’s places sucks. Currently, I don’t have friends, a girlfriend, or a job and yet those things lurk at the edges of my decision making process. To some extent, the fatigue of not having been very settled for the past four or five years makes me cringe at the idea of moving again after a year (if it sucks). And yet I also think I might want to live in a few neighborhoods over the next couple of years (I’m almost convinced of it). Oakland might be really cool. Mission, Haight, San Mateo, Berkeley all might be great places to live. I may want suburban living again (this is a difference between partnered Matt and single Matt – different needs).
I suspect much of this hand-wringing over where to live stems from my shifting definition of “home.” Until very recently (2019), I had lived most of my life in three places… not just neighborhoods or towns, but three actual dwellings. All three of those places were suburban environments. Driving was necessary for groceries and most activities – though Yardley had walking access to a town with some amenities. I got my first taste of city living and being able to walk almost everywhere when I would spend weekdays in Philly. Walking wasn’t always convenient – I remember carrying a Christmas tree on my shoulder for several blocks, but I loved having most things within a ten or fifteen minute walk from the house.
Strangely, this process doesn’t feel entirely different from my experience in dating. Until I had gotten divorced, I had only had two significant relationships my entire life (one was seven years and the other was seventeen). Suddenly, I found myself swimming in a world of possibilities and having to learn and figure out what was important to me. I met and went out with a lot of people in that first year or so. That’s not really an option when it comes to choosing an apartment. In this case, I’d be signing a year lease – meaning if the “date” goes poorly, I’m committed to “additional dates” with my apartment for a year.
I’m sure that had I asked for additional advice, Ian would have been happy to share. I’m not sure that gathering more opinions from locals is going to help. There are times in life when additional information and a greater number of choices become hindrances, especially if there isn’t a clear vision on what one wants. And I don’t have the clearest vision on what I want out of a place and a neighborhood (though it’s getting clearer). It also seems that the bigger the decision is in terms of cost (in time, money, or emotions) the more pressure we put on ourselves to get it right (choosing a partner, choosing a job, buying a car, choosing a place to live). With the exception of choosing a partner (because that can be a pretty serious endeavor with a lifetime impact), I would probably do well to take what the locals are saying with a grain of salt and remind myself that everything is temporary and most things can be changed.