In a surprisingly tender story out of Brooklyn, NY, roommates Ysabel Conway and Gabby Tyler can’t afford to live on their own, and thus, have inadvertently begun to grow old together.
“I don’t really know how it started,” Ysabel told reporters. “One day, I was browsing open rooms on Craigslist, and the next I’m bringing my roommate her tea out on the fire escape, with extra honey, because I know she likes that.”
Ysabel added that she couldn’t really pinpoint when things took a turn, but said that when you “weather so many of life’s ups and downs together” you just kind of have to resign yourself to the fact that this near-stranger is actually your person.
Gabby agreed, saying, “It’s not that I don’t like my roommate – she’s great – I just didn’t envision my life playing out like this.”
Although the roommates didn’t bond right away, their forced proximity and the yawning abyss of their future together threatening to swallow them whole ultimately brought them closer together.
“It was super awkward at first,” Gabby said. “I would always try to avoid seeing her in the kitchen. Now, I still try to avoid seeing her in the kitchen, but it’s in a comfortable, ‘this is our routine’ type of way.”
Ysabel said the two of them have developed an unspoken understanding over the years.
“We initially just went halfsies on a couch from Facebook Marketplace because we thought we’d only be living together for a year, two years tops,” she told reporters. “Now, five years later, we’re browsing matching Barcaloungers at Bob’s Discount Furniture. Not that we’ll ever be able to afford them, but we can dream.”
Sources say this “dream” is a far cry from the dreams the two forever roommates used to have.
“Gabby used to say she wanted to have her own apartment,” Gabby’s mother, Francis, told reporters. “And then, eventually, she dreamed of meeting her soulmate and starting a life with them. But now she’s five years into what’s looking to be a long life with some rando she met on Craigslist.”
Ysabel’s sister Evelyn expressed similar sentiments.
“I know for a fact that Ysabel never envisioned herself growing old with a Craigslist roommate,” she said. “But that’s just kind of how things shook out. And sometimes the most beautiful things in life blossom from not being able to afford the objectively better things that you originally wanted and still quietly yearn for. Or at least that’s what I tell Ysabel.”
As of press time, the two roommates had each gotten huge promotions at their jobs and could now technically afford to live on their own. However, the two still had no plans to move out, and had instead pulled the trigger on the Barcaloungers and booked a spontaneous trip to Bora Bora together.
