“What’s the haps?” asks my tousled, recently pleasured 20-something housemate as she stumbles from bed and fridge hangs, poking for treats. I’m deleting last night’s filthiest Instagrams and rehydrating with a tremendous bloody mary. There’s fresh coffee, lashings of Royal D and the AC’s cranked to ice planet Hoth. Jenna* is wearing nothing but a manshirt and panda eyes. Thank you, God. Even after her signature ‘U Care Cocktail’ – 13 Jagerbombs and a cheeky zolpidem chaser – and three hours’ Pon-twerking on the two Korean missionaries now lights out and wuffling on the couch, this self-confessed ‘slert’ looks fresh as a kitten.
“Parpcorn! Advil!” she croaks adorably in American, just as our resident ebony/ivory man-child chick magnets, Pavel and Ben**, slap in naked from the pool. We found them in Lucky Soriya loading up on ramen and Red Bull to take back to their egregious $6 guest house. I say something droll and fabulous, honeybadger cool despite their dowsing tonks. Group hugs. The turquoise pool twinkles through the patio palms. I sigh. Oh, yes, these are my beautiful friends. But this is not my beautiful house. This is my sitcom dream pad.
It’s 10 years since I shared a dwelling with someone other than my significant other. I’m now comfortably domiciled in a rejigged 18×4 in the heart of CharmingVille with bloke, pet and, in a nod to cross-cultural connubial compromise, a bunch of sticks fermenting in a wee-like but apparently drinkable liquid on our balcony. It’s a man thing (I’m told). Despite this and other inexplicable personal habits that dare not speak their names, there are perks to monogamous cohabitation. Like waking up next to someone whose name I remember (Jenna wasn’t the only slert around these parts). It’s also nice to have someone to hold your hair back in the most undignified moments, or pull it a little bit during the other ones. But the grass is always greener for those of us fenced in, hitched-up malcontents, and it’s not cheating to indulge in some free-for-all sitcom housery daydreaming.
As I salivate through pool-villa porn on Bong Thom, or tut tut enviously at footloose friends’ Jack-juiced war stories down 136, I sometimes hanker for the heady single sleaze of Lakeside before the ’dozers, or skinny dips in BKK before the betrothal. Pontoon was still an actual pontoon. Thanks to a contemporaneous shitload of happy pizza, my rose-coloured memory screens images of sweet-smelling wayfarers with walnut-cracker arses and Fibonacci dimensions who fell like Parkway ninepins for my potent charms. Like my sitcom dream roomies, these travelling phantasms came for a night and stayed for months, generously sharing their NGO pay cheques and picking up their towels. OK, so, no one actually did that. But spare an old Digger, wouldja?
So while the perfect share house is off my personal shopping list, Phnom Penh’s cheap rents mean there’s no need for you to inhabit a rattan-filled underwater pineapple or squat-share with a bunch of harem-panted students who put their names on their tofu. Throw a bagel from any Browns and you’ll hit a vacant pool villa aching to be desecrated by hot Norwegians in Miley bear costumes. If you get sick of them, they’ll be gone soon anyway. The ever-changing human scenery in our town means we’re chockers with Spanish Schmidts, French Joeys and Bolivian Vyvyans. Just turn on your Tinder and see what I mean. Near you right now there may be a) someone you know really well who’s married with kids; b) a white rasta who likes to ‘vibe with the tribe’, or c) a like-minded nowhereian looking for a place to lay his or her hat.
*Her real name
**Not their real names