The Rip-Off

I'd planned to spend my first months in Portugal renting a room from two of my dearest, oldest friends, but they turned out to be late-stage alcoholics who flipped between two modes:

1. "We hate that you're here and hope you drop dead", and 2. "Why are you so skittish around us? What's wrong with you? We're your friends and we love you!"

I found every excuse to get away: travel, chowhounding (familiarizing myself with every restaurant south of Lisbon and north of Alentejo), park visits and cafe hangs, but I discovered (this is actually useful information!) that you cannot fill up all 168 hours of a week like that. So I spent 6-8 hours a day sitting in my car. There was a tree I liked, so I parked in front of it. Good times!

I had to accelerate efforts to find my own place, so I auditioned a series of realtors, each worse than the last. As ditzy as they may be in USA, here it's worse. They're like used car salesmen. There's no code of conduct local realtors even pretend to uphold. I settled on a French guy, a moody chainsmoker who, once I'd signed on, didn't conceal his contempt. His cracked phone screen showed how desperately he needed his commission. At every gross place he showed me, he'd stare at me, willing me via psi-powers. Please buy. Please. You want this.

My living situation had become unlivable, so Frenchie found me a rental which turned out to be adjacent to a marble cutter, who started at 7am, the whole house shaking and fine stone dust pluming, triggering asthma that hadn't recurred in decades. This is how you force a client to buy ASAP. Clever Frenchie!

In my haggard state, I managed to mess up my ankle and could barely walk. And just around then began a series of food-borne illnesses (I'd developed an inability to fight off campylobacter) which eventually stripped 45 pounds off of me, leaving me dehydrated to the point where my kidneys filled with tiny stones.

Half-dead — and inclined to use my remaining energy to drown the realtor — we walked quite unexpectedly into a soulful, super-nice, perfect apartment. But it was 70,000€ too expensive, and the owner shrewdly noticed that I was geared up about it and refused to budge. For weeks. I actually begged at one point, but no dice. My realtor was so galled that he actually counseled me—against his own interest!— to keep looking. Everyone in my life begged me to tell the owner to go to Hell. There are other apartments, after all!

Nope. I bought it.

The owner couldn't stop grinning at the closing as I limped around coughing and making bathroom detours. But I bought, moved in, and swiftly began recovering, and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. I now live in a soulful, utterly comfortable apartment which, after three years, has appreciated above its sale price. A win by any standard. Asthma's better, stomach is mostly sorted, and Señora Vanessa is making great progress on my ankles.

I don't know many people who'd have bought. They'd keep viewing properties with the contemptuous Frenchman, limping, coughing, and faint from a diet of white rice and toast. The price was WAY too high, the owner was WAY too much of a prick, and this was a scene you'd have been delighted to walk away from...even though it was a really great apartment.

But that last part was the only part that mattered, under the circumstances.

I can't say it involved any high-mindedness. I didn't forgive anyone, or keep a "positive attitude". I merely followed my self-interest — like everyone does all the time! — in the presence of considerable gall. The ultimate example of not cutting off one's nose to spite one's face.

Now, having discovered the massive rewards of losing face (it's like a superpower!), I'm a changed person. In such scenarios, I deny myself nothing on principle. I'm not normally selfish, but this is my sole exception. I garland myself with the luxury of doing what's best for me even when the situation calls for haughty self-denial.

The best revenge is living well, though it may take forbearance to get through the initial degradation. It absolutely made sense to shower money at a seller who wouldn't stop grinning because he'd made a killing by killing me...because it was my best shot at living. He won, but I won more!