And lo, we have returned to London. Switzerland is but a dream now, a distant memory of snow-peaked mountains and Americans, Australians, and English people charging up the stairs of Chalet Martin at three in the morning after five hours of drink motherfucker drink motherfucker drink! games.

I am full of mixed feelings.

But who wants to get all feelings on you at a time like this? Not me, skipper, that’s for damn sure. We moved into a new flat yesterday, a delightful place on Hornsey Road. It’s almost the size of my old studio apartment in Austin, albeit divided into two tiny rooms, and features such novelties as a shower in the bedroom closet (no, really) and no flatmate. It costs a mere $1,473 a month, and is but nine stops from the heart of the city. Hey, that’s still single-digits, right?

And man, were we lucky to get it. If we were not such fresh-faced married white people with American accents, we would be staying in a budget hotel down in Bayswater right now, I am willing to bet you. We would be bemoaning our circumstances and I would be writing threatening letters full of all the rage and bile I could muster to everyone involved in screwing us over. But I can table those, because of the white Americanness previously mentioned. Neat, huh?

So, like, it’s hard to get a flat in the UK without an employer’s reference, which is essentially a letter from your job saying dear sir or madam, dan totally works here and we totally pay him actual money. Neither Kat nor I have such letters, because we have not got employers. Instead we are funded by loans that will make our lives frustratingly complicated for the next thirty years. Pharmaceutical research trials and freelance work buoy our financial standing to a survivable level, but these are not things that a prospective landlord has much faith in.

We had provided the management company with our documentation, a few old bank statements and utility bills and, um, nothing else, because we have nothing else- no employer’s references, no previous landlord’s reference (our previous landlord was scamming the system by renting out a flat he received on benefits for cash, and occupying another place in his wife’s name, and was hesitant to put his name on paper because of it), and nothing to prove that we could actually pay the rent. We turned all of this information into them ten days before our lease was due to start, told them to contact me via email if there were any problems while we were in Switzerland, and took off for mountains and American kids doing their month of backpacking.

We received a few emails from the company while we were in Switzerland, confirming that we would be moving in the day we got back and the amount of money needed to leave as a deposit when we signed the lease. So it was a bit of a surprise when we got there that night, after the train-to-train-to-plane-to-bus-to-tube journey from Gryon, and discovered that they had not even glanced at our references, which they deemed insufficient.

white privilege is a concept that a lot of white people are deeply uncomfortable with, for good reason. Some deal with that discomfort by denying its existence. After all- it is life, and it is not easy, and it can be galling to be told that your life, with its attendant difficulties, has been privileged by something you neither asked for nor are capable of controlling. If you have worked hard for everything that you’ve got, it feels very wrong to be told that you’ve got it easy because of the color of your skin.

Others try to reject it, to refuse what they see as signs of privilege, and to dress and act in a manner that makes receiving such treatment less likely. It feels like this is being more fair, but it does nothing to change the way white people are perceived in general.

And me? I have no idea what to do with it. The most I’ve been able to come up with is to be aware when it’s happening, when I’m getting something because of how I’m seen- as a well-spoken white man with a well-spoken white wife, both of whom carry American passports and speak in very mild American accents.

The reason I bring all of this up is that there is no way we would have been handed the keys to that flat on Hornsey Road the night we flew in from Switzerland if we were not seen as the sort of people whom it is desirable to have as tenants; if people did not empathize with us because we are easy to identify with, looking and talking like most of the people on television and in movies; if it were not taken as a given that white Americans will be responsible and surely have access to money at all times. We had nothing to prove that we would have the means to pay the rent, and while I am certainly grateful for the kindness shown by the man in the office who kept saying that he wouldn’t leave us homeless after coming in from the airport, and negotiating on our behalf with his boss, I’ve got no doubt that someone who was not white would have had a hell of a more difficult time finding a place to sleep that night.

But not us. And what are you supposed to do, when you recognize that sort of thing? This is part of why so many white people deny that such privilege exists- because it feels gross to receive it, and it feels like something for which one should be ashamed. No one wants something they don’t deserve. But what does that mean in this case? It was their fault they didn’t even open the folder with our references in it until six o’clock on the evening we were due to move in, not ours. I had confirmed with them the date and deposit amount the day before. It was their mistake, not verifying all of our information before telling us that we could move in. Our position had not changed from the time they told us that until the time they had us sitting in their office, poring over our scant references, trying to decide what to do, and ultimately deciding that we were worth the risk.

So of course we took it, because the alternative is to let yourself be screwed over, just because you know that someone else in your position would be screwed over. And I don’t feel guilty about it, but I don’t feel comfortable with it, either.

Which is okay, I guess. Who can really tell what the right reaction is in these situations?

And so we are moved in now, into our tiny flat that we share with no one else. The place really is nice, all things considered. Hornsey Road is a busy street, but we are on the second floor, which is what the English call the third floor, so the noise is not as bad as it was on our previous street, even with 24 hour buses running by. It’s above a hair salon and next to a laundromat; there is a halal chicken shop two doors down called texas fried chicken, which is an entirely incoherent name, as Texas is not really known for that particular delicacy. We’ve got a few off-licence and grocery shops around, although both of the local pubs are currently closed. This has sent me up to the library in Wood Green, about ten minutes north by bus, in search of wireless Internet access, as a frustrating and really boring set of circumstances has barred us from having it at the new flat. I’ve yet to track it down, as the system here isn’t working, but I reckon I’ll have figured something out by the time I post this. Until then, hell- take care of yourselves, and take care of each other, as Springer used to say, and probably still does.