I’ve always heard that when you find The One, you just know; you feel it deep within your gut.
I’d lived in San Francisco for two weeks when I pulled up to the intersection of Castro and 18th with my best friend, Shane, who’d also recently moved here. As we waited for the light to turn green, we silently watched the flurry of activity happening on each corner: an elderly, shirtless tranny wearing a pink boa and hot pants on one corner, the Cheer for Life cheerleaders building a pyramid on another, a small group carrying protest signs and petitions on another corner, and two hot gay men making out in front of a puppy adoption center on the last corner.
And that’s when I knew. I was in love—with an entire city. San Francisco was The One for me.
Those corner activities might not seem like a big deal to most people. But I grew up in the South, where “gay” is still a dirty word in some places and nice southern girls are taught to mind their Ps and Qs and just generally not cause a fuss, let alone lead a protest. So that thirty-second vignette of SF life left me breathless with excitement for what was to come … and I wasn’t disappointed.
Seven years and seven San Francisco neighborhoods later, I’m still as in love with the city as I was that day in the Castro. On several occasions, my continued residency here has been uncertain (thank you very much, dot.com layoffs), but I’ve fought Mike Tyson-style for the privilege to pay through the nose—an average rental price of $2261 per month for a one-bedroom—to stay here. With prices like that, most non-SF residents probably wonder why it’s worth it. But those of us lucky enough to live here know exactly why we persevere.
For example, not a single day has passed since living here that I haven’t found something new to admire; a hidden staircase, a quaint alley, an undiscovered view, a beautiful mural, an unexplored street, or a tucked-away park. Track housing is unheard of in San Francisco, making every journey out an adventure because no two buildings look the same, thanks to the varying architecture and intricate paint jobs.
