So last week I wrapped up my Home Buying 101 course.  It was worth it, but I should have done the one-day dealio, instead of the two-hours-a-night-over-the-course-of-four-weeks one, because I knew by the end of the first session that I would not be ready to buy for another two to five years, and then I had to sit through three more weeks of classes. 

But real estate has now basically become my new porn.  I can't say I wasn't warned that that happens when you turn 40. But I can't get enough of it.  And my habit's even starting to get in the way of normal, healthy hook-ups.  Like the other night I had a little date, and we went back to his place in the South End.  He had bought when it really was a buyer's market, and he'd done a beautiful, quirky renovation of the space. 

I demanded a tour of the place, and when we finally got round to making out, it wasn't a minute before something caught my eye, and I was hammering him — but with questions about the work he'd done on his condo. 

I'm getting antsy is the thing.  Life on the home front is getting a little tedious, I have to admit.  Jake's a nice guy but when my lease is up here I'll be looking to live alone.  You get to a certain age and you just don't want to deal with a roommate.  I mean, it's really all the worst of a marriage without hope, desire, or even the consolation of the memory of sex.  I don't want to live with a friend, much less a more or less complete stranger who expects me to clean up after him.

Here's a typical Jake thing.  The other day I was working on my laptop in the living room when he came bumbling in. 

"Hey, dja mind if I make some coffee?" he asked. 

Jake usually drinks tea at home.

"Not at all," I answered from the sofa, and told him where he could find the beans.

I heard him rummaging around in the kitchen.

"Um," he finally stammered.  "How do you do it?"

"How do you do... what?" I asked.

"Can it make just one cup?" he asked. "I only want one cup."

"Make half a pot, and I'll drink some later," I told him.

He scratched his head.  

"Oh, forget it," he said, finally.  "I'll just have tea."

The kid doesn't need a gay roommate, he needs a Mexican housekeeper, obviously.  I mean, come on.  Jake is 29.  Is it really possible he's never made a pot of coffee?  And it's not like we have a De’Longhi Prima Donna or something. We're talking a straight-up Mister Coffee I got for $12.99 at the hardware store.  It ain't rocket science.

I considered, at first, when I had to instruct him in how to use a Swiffer — A SWIFFER FOR THE LOVE OF GOD — that this was just Jake being coy and trying to get me to do all the work around the place.  But he's gonna hafta show a lot more skin if he wants me to start making his morning coffee. 

I suppose it's possible he's genuinely adrift when confronted with ordinary, everyday domestic tasks.  I am teaching a computer class one evening a week at the the Community Development Corporation, and a couple weeks ago a gentleman in his late forties, I'd say — a little on the low-income end of things, but seemingly normal, otherwise — came in wanting to know how to check his email.

When he sat down at the computer, it soon became apparent he had never used a mouse before.  And watching him try has got to be the most poignant thing I've seen in yonks.  He was getting a full-body workout.  I kept urging him to stay on the mouse pad, and try to sit still — he nearly fell off his swivel chair twice.

"It's all in the wrist!" I told him, but he never did quite get the hang of it. 

When we finally got into Explorer I was like, "OK, so what's your email address?"

No idea. 

He'd just heard about email, and figured everyone had it, so he must to.  Somewhere.  Maybe at the Fenway CDC?

I felt sorry for the guy.  He was poor, undereducated, and coming late to the game.   Jake, on the other hand, has no excuse.  He comes from a good family.  He's had every advantage.  He paces around the apartment with his Mac Book under his arm and his iphone to his ear.  And he's about to get his teaching license. 

I think the internet is a marvel.  It can boost your IQ by, like, twenty points instantly.  For me, the wonder of Googling shit never wears off.  But then I can remember endless afternoons at the British Council in Budapest in the days of dial-up and metered pay plans, looking through the day's papers for what's at my fingertips in an instant today.  Not to mention porn and real estate.

But it never ceases to amaze me how new technologies that make everything easier also seem to make each successive generation think what's easier for the generation before them is still harder than what's to come.  And we're reaching critical mass here, in case you haven't noticed.  You and I, we think of Googling as easy because we remember having to make a trip across town, during office hours on weekdays, to get information that's at our fingertips now. 

But for generations that never had to go through all that, Googling must seem so-o-o-o-o ha-a-a-ard.  I mean, first you have to type something in, and then you have to wait, like, a whole half a second!  It's so slow!  I could have done ten tweets in that time!  I could have, like, sexted twenty of my facebook friends! 

Still.  Google "how to make a pot of coffee" and you get fifteen-and-a-half million results in .34 seconds.  Make the time.

Or you could bug your gay roommate, and settle for a cup of tea instead.