When I first told my mother about my new roommate, a man more than a decade my senior, she was astounded: “You moved in with a 35-year-old man you didn’t know?” “Yes,” I replied. “And he’s great!”
That was my refrain throughout a long Thanksgiving dinner, where I batted back questions about my safety and my sanity. I was up against a well-ingrained societal more: A 23-year old woman should not live with a man she met on the internet. But if I followed that advice, I would have missed out on the experience of living with Igor, my former roommate-turned-friend.
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The year was 2022 and he was looking for someone to fill the second bedroom in his $1,800-a-month apartment in south Brooklyn. I needed to leave my cramped room on the Upper East Side, where my landlord planned to hike my rent by 20 percent. When my boyfriend saw Igor’s Instagram story looking for a roommate and connected us, it felt like real estate fate.
I did have a few concerns; I had never lived with a man before—or with a millennial for that matter. But NYC’s tight real estate market has made stranger bedfellows. After meeting Igor and touring his apartment, I was certain he would be a responsible, respectful roommate. What I didn’t know was that he would also become one of my closest friends.
Neighborhood know-how
Our first few weeks flowed in quiet cohabitation: We crossed paths around 8 a.m. every morning and 10 p.m. every night. I had expected most of our roommate-ship to proceed that way, in brief discussions about the dishes in the sink, the broken lightbulb in the kitchen, or whose turn it was to take out the trash. But mutual curiosity soon pushed us past those cursory conversations.
We discovered a shared passion for Mario Kart, movies, and high-drama television—think “White Lotus” and “Succession,” among others. We started a monthly tradition of combining our latest series with takeout, boba tea, or other treats, and Igor made finding a restaurant easy with his five-plus years of neighborhood knowledge.
He introduced me to the dumpling place that would become my all-time favorite restaurant in NYC. He had the inside scoop on the nightlife (and the bocce ball) at Union Hall, the cafes that welcomed computer-haulers, and the best place for that much-needed post-work glass of wine: Judy’s. I didn’t have to search for a laundromat—Igor already knew the best spot.
Benefiting from our generation gap
He was also familiar with how to share his space, having lived with roommates for years longer than me. But our age difference—which I’m sure caused some mutual anxiety—ended up making us better roommates.
To us, our age gap made it clear that we were going to be just roommates, not romantic partners. It also meant we had opposite schedules; he tended to stay home more often, while I usually stayed out, giving him ample time to enjoy his own space.
As an older roommate, he knew to avoid many of the cohabitating faux pas I worried about when considering bunking with a friend. He kept a regular bedtime, rarely hosted guests, and was comfortable communicating about our shared cleaning habits (and calling me out when I left my dishes in the sink).
My New York Yoda
Igor also provided crucial advice that a younger, more naive me needed to hear. When analyzing seemingly coded texts or unpacking a bad date, Igor’s opinions were always insightful. He could cut into meaning like no other—partly because he was a writer and partly because he was a few years ahead of me. He had already lived through the various crises I was attempting to parse.
Eventually I dubbed him my “New York Yoda” because his advice forced me to make better decisions. Or, when I didn’t, it was on the rare occasion I ignored his perspective.
I still rely on him as a sounding board and confidant, though we both have since moved out of that apartment—me to gain a shorter commute, and him for a place to himself. But our tradition of takeout and gossip lives on in a rotation of downtown Brooklyn restaurants and boba tea shops.
