bnb'ing vs swapping

Airbnb’ers are people lovers, Swappers are not. I have swapped my NYC apartment twice, once when my partner and I went to Paris, the second time LA. I have also been assigned to an Airbnb when a friend brought me down to Austin to help remodel his place and he needed to put me up for a few nights. There are two main differences between the experiences it seems to me. Bnb’ing is a monetary transaction, the other is some kind of a barter or share. Second, bnb’ing often comes with people, at least if you are doing it legally, in a big city, with rent regulations, the other does not.

There is a picture in a news article in the NY Times about Airbnb hosts in Japan. There was a young American sitting on a comfortable chair in the nice but chaotic living room of his hosts with their little girl of about four or five, chatting. Please God, may it never happen to me. I could certainly see myself wandering around their apartment, relaxing on the couch before venturing out for another round of Tokyo site-seeing, glad of my comfortable non-hotel experience, but to have to converse? No thank you.

I don’t want to meet people, I just want to use their stuff. And for that privilege I will give them my stuff to use for the same amount of time. My partner tends to care more about the other people than I do. She takes care of the little gifts we leave them for when they arrive at our place and she leaves flowers and a thank you note at their place when we leave. I’m glad she does, because it doesn’t occur to me, and invariably, there is a little gift for us when we arrive at the swappers apartment and a thank you note in the reverse. Without her I would get bad reviews. She also cares about the swappers experience while in our place, hoping for good weather for them and worrying about whether our directions vis-à-vis the subway were detailed enough. I don’t.

When in Austin I had two different Airbnb’s. One was the second bedroom of someone I never saw although I know she came home, slept and then was out again early for work. That lasted two days. I wondered how she felt having a strange man in the next room. The other was a spare bedroom—with its own bathroom this time—in a large rambling house. In order to enter or exit I had to pass the living area of the couple who owned the house. He was not there very often, she was there a lot and had a curiosity about me that I tried politely to satisfy. Needless to say I would have preferred an empty nest.

Its not that I don’t like people. There are a handful that I get along with quite well. But meeting new people? Please, only when circumstances require, otherwise I am quite happy with inanimate objects and recorded music. The two swap experiences were great. After an initial day of settling-in and orientation, I quickly fell into a kind of faux ownership, coming and going as if I lived there for years. And the view you have of how it would be to live in an average persons apartment in the middle of Paris or Beverly Hills is unmatched by staying in a hotel. Plus, if I’m paying for something, I’m going to expect certain things. If I’m swapping, I take it as it is.

To my fellow isolationists; try swapping, you’ll like it. To my social, chatter-bug friends; there are plenty of friendly (and really friendly) people out there willing to share their bathroom with you. Enjoy.

Obama's Prayer Breakfast Truth Telling.

Brutality wears Christian garb just as comfortably as Muslim. Before we get too high and mighty, sure of our insulated distance from the despicable act of setting the Jordanian pilot on fire in a cage, we must remind ourselves that our own Southern back yard did that and more. The grandfather or great grandfather of the gal who owns the dress shop on the corner once pulled on a rope, dangling a man from a tree until dead, all in the name of Christ. Obama was right to point this out at the prayer breakfast. I recommend Karen Armstrong’s “Fields Of Blood, Religion and the History of Violence” for an overview of what we are capable of without missing a day of worship.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/us/history-of-lynchings-in-the-south-documents-nearly-4000-names.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news