First, I would’ve clarified the boundaries – in this future reality, can we fly, for instance. I thought about what I might have said, were I 20 years younger. The sobriety of the young people’s fantasies made me pause: it was a two-bed flat they wanted, good eyebrows, a catīut in this piece, the sobriety and simplicity of the young people’s fantasies made me pause: it was a two-bed flat they wanted, good eyebrows, a cat. While many of my friends find this practice (which includes time spent staring glazily at estate agents’ websites) vaguely sickening and morally weak, it relaxes me – I’m comfortable in that cold water, the vast moat between how we live, and how we thought we would. I am what I kindly choose to describe as a curious person – someone who peers quite deeply into lighted windows and the lives of others, and who subscribes to a number of publications that focus almost exclusively on walking the reader around strangers’ fabulous homes – so this magazine piece gripped me. Last week there was a big magazine piece where young New Yorkers were interviewed about their dream lives, then, looking at real estate listings and school fees and takeaway prices, calculated exactly how much such a life would cost. My friends enter the competitions wryly, ruefully, as if chucking coins into a fountain, why not? What a thing, I thought! What a thing! I kept my eye out for more, and over the years they multiplied, the competitions now a little industry in themselves, newspaper pieces written about the winners, photographs of happy couples standing in the driveways of newbuilds holding large silver suitcases of cash. T he first time I saw a house as a competition prize I laughed.
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