How One Woman Found “The One” — Condo, Not Lover

That initial euphoria lasted about as long as a junior high school romance. Every weekend, we’d look at dozens of condos and invariably, I’d fall hard for one. Yet the next day, I’d discover some hidden flaw: It had one closet. That charming view soon would include a recycling plant next door. Why didn’t the swimming pool have a diving board? Uh, because it was actually a sinkhole. Sometimes the devil was in the fudged details. When one promising listing’s “parking” turned out to be an expensive spot for rent in another building, I felt like the woman who’s promised a blind date with a “George Clooney–type,” only to end up with George Costanza instead. But my search also forced me to take a closer look at myself.

The afternoon I sobbed uncontrollably on my—ugh!‸—wall-to-wall carpeting simply because a building that I loved lacked a back door suggested that I might be overly critical. At the very least, it seemed, my “Likes/Dislikes” list needed more work. Ultimately, so did my “commitment issues.” After months of looking and increasingly doubting myself, I had to be talked out of making an offer on an OK one-bedroom I disconsolately deemed “good enough.”

The next week, after moving too slowly on an adorable two-bedroom, I was publicly remorseful and secretly relieved. That’s when I knew I was in a dysfunctional relationship with homebuying. It was time to take a break. Soon after, I made the call to my Realtor, telling her we “needed to talk” when she returned from her well-earned vacation. By then, an out-of-state investor had bought my little apartment, which she was happy to let me keep living in at the same rent. For a while, it was nice to be back with my safe old boyfriend with the galley kitchen and the laundry room Stalin down the hall. But eventually, little things that I hadn’t noticed or let bother me before began gnawing at me: Every wall was that same bland Apartment House Issue eggshell white; the bathroom lacked charm, not to mention shelves. And after all these years, the closest I’d come to Paris was buying French bread at Publix.