Regardless, Troy never mentioned it, either because he never shit in our dorm, or because he pretended, as always, he was too cool to care.

In any case, Troy was the last man I ever (reluctantly) shared a bedroom with. And I hope this story stands as a warning to any man who may consider sharing a bedroom with me in the future: Let it be known that this is my territory. What happens here is in my control.

And if you try to secretly masturbate behind my back, I will tell everybody we know that it happened.

ON LIVING ALONE IN NEW YORK CITY

There’s a point in the process of searching for an apartment in New York City, perhaps when you’re standing in a paper-bag-turned-bedroom, staring at a toilet beneath a kitchen sink next to an icebox plugged into a power strip that’s dangling from a hole in the wall, when you start to wonder if death might truly be the answer. A coffin costs less for the same square footage, after all. It’s got hardwood finishing, with bedding and draperies already installed, no year-end rent increases, no neighbors to complain that the TV is too loud, a solid foundation, and most important, no roommates to judge you for decaying in the same spot all weekend. It’s really the perfect arrangement, all things considered.

But a coffin isn’t always the answer, which is how I found myself, like millions of would-be New Yorkers every year, in search of a place my living, breathing body could occupy for less than the cost of sacrificing my firstborn. (Though, to be fair, I’d gladly sell my unborn children to a labor camp in exchange for a two-bedroom Greenwich Village loft with a washer and dryer.)

I first moved to New York City four years ago, and by most standards, my first apartment—in the deep Brooklyn neighborhood where Meryl Streep’s character lived in that movie where she kills one of her kids—was an absolute mansion. I had a bedroom that fit both a mattress and pillows, a bathroom with a mirror, and a kitchen with a window. The neighbors I shared a wall with only had vigorous animal sex once in three years, as far as I could hear. And I found only one or two cockroaches, near the refrigerator, but they were both already dead, so that basically doesn’t even count. Any apartment in New York with a mirror, a window, and a mysterious air for killing cockroaches is luxury living.