GIMME SHELTER

WASHINGTON — I am not shy. Ask me a question — what do I think of Washington, how’s the job going, do I watch “American Idol” — and I’m as eager as the next guy to talk about myself. But I also draw a personal line that I expect strangers to respect. I would not, for example, welcome a bank teller’s inquiry into my sexuality. Yet because I’m one of thousands of twenty-something professionals looking for affordable rentals in this our unaffordable capitol, that line gets crossed again and again. The only way I can pay for a place big enough to turn around in is by getting into some kind of group arrangement. And the strangers looking for housemates, understandably, want to know what kind of person they’re inviting in. So the questions begin: What time do I shower in the morning? How often do I cook? Would I store anything other than kosher foods in the community refrigerator? Am I gay or straight, atheist or believer, recluse or party animal? Some people seem to be looking for the gay agnostic hermit gourmet chef while others are looking for the straight Catholic socialite who only eats out. So far, nobody seems to be looking for me.

Recently, I went to an “open house” near Capitol Hill. The online ad described it as a casual opportunity to meet potential housemates, to see if there was a match. It felt more like coming up against Robert De Niro in “Meet the Parents.”

For about half an hour, I waited in the living room for my turn to be interrogated, sizing up the competition. The applicant sitting beside me made me nervous: pretty, a brunette, with a self-possessed manner and clothes that screamed “professional.” I was sitting there with scruffy hair and a bike helmet on my lap. (And wait a minute … I have to compete with women, too?)

She walked gracefully into the kitchen, and, after about a quarter-hour, walked just as gracefully out. My turn. In the kitchen, two women and a guy waited in a disconcertingly formal manner. I introduced myself and tried to loosen things up with some small talk: “So, have you guys lived here long?” They didn’t bite.

“Tell us about yourself,” one commanded.

With 15 minutes to convince them I was intelligent, responsible and funny, I talked too fast and stammered. They asked about my hobbies.

“I’m really into my bike,” I jabbered, or something like that. “It’s really a big part of my life. I take it on vacations. I ride it to work.” Meanwhile I was thinking, Wow! Good for me — because actually I ride a couple times a week, and never when it’s cold, which didn’t stop me from going on to call myself “an avid bicycling enthusiast.”

They asked about my job, and what I hoped to become later in life. (Mind frantically racing: How do I beat out those Hill staffers?) I told them I’m a journalist, and that I count on joining a major newspaper someday.

They asked about my likes and dislikes, and I tried to find common ground. I complimented them excessively on the blue curtains in the kitchen and the pretty flowers in the back yard. (Mind racing again: What kind of flowers are they?)

I made jokes, or tried to. Basically, I found myself begging to be their friend.

The truth is, I wanted to say, I don’t much care about window drapes and gardening, I’m not always so quick with quips and I never yap about contrived hobbies and exaggerated career aspirations. I just want some nice people to live with.

A few days later, I was notified in an impersonal e-mail that I hadn’t made the cut. “Thank you for coming by,” it said.

No, thank you for that heartfelt response.

I realize I have to expose myself to some degree because this is a roommate interview, not a post office line; we’re going to have to get along. But where I become flustered is at the house that seems to have a checklist of demands, and no one need apply unless he is 23 to 28 years old, musically inclined and dedicated to video games on weeknights and barbecuing on weekends. Or where they insist that I be clean but not a neat freak, mature but willing to take chances, a political junkie but not Republican — that last one being kind of odd, given who’s got the most jobs on Capitol Hill these days.

I had no idea people could choose roommates like this. Isn’t there something called a Fair Housing Act? As it turns out, there is no law against picking roommates on the basis of their degree of cool. And the law doesn’t stop people like my current, moderately wacky landlady from demanding religion in a rental application, because she lives downstairs and so, I gather, kind of qualifies as a housemate.

She tells me that she bans Muslims and atheists. You understand why I have to get out of here?

Anyway, while this place is presumably safe, it’s got sturdy bars on all the windows and multiple dead bolts on the doors; and I feel the need to walk briskly when I get off the Metro after dark, avoiding ugly stares and hoping the next fatal drive-by shooting won’t happen until I’m inside the front door.

So that’s how I ended up hunting again, looking for the right house, the right housemates, the right location, for the right price.

Got a place? If it helps, I can tell you I like riding my bike around town (but not really with avid enthusiasm), meeting new people (of all genders, races, faiths and sexualities), visiting the National Museum of American History (since you ask, a favorite exhibit is “The Price of Freedom: Americans at War”), and barbecuing (vegetarian kitchens will be considered). I’m clean and sociable but will stay out of your personal life. And, with practice, I know I can be really witty.

If you have questions that require answers of a highly personal nature, stuff my mother does not know, you might have to buy me a beer — after I move in.

And to the Russian woman whose visa is about to expire and who offered free rent in exchange for one concession: Sorry, I will not marry you.