round peg, square hole

Today it has been exactly 10 days since I started house-hunting. I'm trying to focus on that fact, and not the other one, equally true, that I have 'used up' two weeks worth of Sunday classifeds with only one more to go. Since then, I have spoken to maybe two dozen people and seen around 10 houses. It is tough going..both when a house is obviously unsuitable, and when a house is suitable, but the owners don’t like you.

Last Sunday was especially tough. I walked all morning, was refused two houses I really liked, and would have been unable to stay in two others. By the end of that session, I had shoebite, a migraine, and no one had had the courtesy to offer me water. I was close to crying while tramping around, and when I came home, that's just what I did.

I had been refused one of those two houses because they wanted a couple with a stay-at-home wife (as a companion to the landlady) and the other, because they wanted a couple with a non-traveling husband ( as a watchman). Before that, I had been refused one house on the phone because of my provenance. I was upset and resentful at the end of the day. I wished that I was more conventional, more 'proper'.

This mood only lasted a day or two. The fact that even an ostensibly married couple is not proper enough put things into perspective for me. Apparently, we would have to be the traditional 'single income, two kids' family to fit in. And even that would not have been enough. In the course of this house-hunt, I have been asked my place of origin (pref: same as the house-owners), my caste ('higher' the better), my place of work (govt/bank preferred), food habits (vegetarian&teetotaler preferred), leisure habits (non-travelling required). Why even bother to fit in? and why? And fit into whose mould?

I like me. The One likes me. My family and friends like me, and like the combination of the One and I. The rest of the world can go take a hike.

After it lets me rent a one bedroom-hall-kit-bath with separate access and verandah, please. Pretty please?