If there’s one thing I’ve learned browsing Craigslist, it’s that everyone thinks what they have is worth allot more than it actually is. My relationship with the man currently haggling with me had already lasted longer then some of my exes. “Charles” was insisting on meeting me before letting me test drive his ’89 Honda Civic to “see who I was”. He claimed to have been burned before on these types of things, and if we were going to move forward he wanted to make sure I was the right person. As much as I could relate to his plight I continued to insist that was completely absurd.

It had been 3 months since I was fired. The only semblance of a plan I had was to continue swiping right on enough Tinder matches to the point where I could consider booking them for some type of YouTube dating game revival. I absolutely despise online dating, and in this new world of one word pick up lines and canned machismo I was desperate to fantasize about a time when love and commercial appeal had more of syndicated day time TV glow to it a la “Blind Date”.

In the midst of my daydreaming, I noticed the “Rooms Shared” section. I immediately began to fantasize about posting an ad in some far off place. I wasn’t even sure what I would do if I just spontaneously left and started over, but the idea of simply leaving always feels like a tempting option.

So, that’s what I did.

I started with just one city, LA. I spent a good 20 minutes frantically typing my thoughts out, then deleting them. I decided to start with a simple apporach

“Looking for Friendly Roommates”

“Female, 28 wondering what’s out there. Willing to entertain a variety of scenarios for the right non-creepy person.”

I decided to ad a photo, so my future roommate would see how cool and non-threatening I am.

I stared at my inbox waiting for the responses to come in. A few days went by, a responses but nothing really intriguing yet. Then it happend.

“1 bed to spare on our farm in southern California. Ideally, the right person would help harvest the (marijuana) plants we’re growing and take care of the animals while we were gone…”

This was unbelievable. I could spend my days as a pseudo farmer, and my nights as an animal caregiver. I was so caught up I neglected to notice the first line.

“Friendly open-minded Bi Couple, 1 bed to spare on our farm in southern California.”

I wanted to desperately believe that the only reason that was thrown out there was for some sort of “We’re Bi, you’re Trans” front to make us all more at ease. This is never the case. The proposition of sexual favors in exchange for reasonable accommodations, while tempting, just isn’t my style so I politely declined.