We don't care about your apartment envy. Just tell us how much your place costs.

The 70-and-counting comments beneath "It" writer Sloan Crosley’s apartment-envy confessional (NYT Opinionator blog, 10/20/10) tend to fall into two categories: The phenomenon of apartment envy itself, and astonishment that other people too have dreams about opening a door in their apartment only to find another apartment.

But for elephant-in-the-room directness, it's hard to beat this one: "For crying out loud...What is your apartment like, where is it located and how much rent do you pay ? That's all we want to know lady. We don't care about where your grandmother used to live. None of us do." (Guilty.)

Here are some more worth repeating:

• "Dishwasher envy" :) I think I'll stick with my 3000 sft, $280K single-family home quite a ways outside of New York City where the mention of dishwater envy is likely to guide you straight for a psych evaluation.
• In my dreams, I open my closet door and find...a washer/dryer!!
• The grass is always greener across the hallway
• I knew the writer had to be young, this is the oldest "living in the big city" topic. This desire for more is for the young, in suburbia that is manifested in the need for gigantic master baths, a bath for every bedroom and "man caves". Mature readers know that some day you will drop this craving for "more, more, more" and realize "they" can keep their heliport, their 8,000 sq ft house. I don't want to heat it, I don't want to clean it and I don't want to outgrow where I live as I scale down. Be content, happiness is not a big house, it's a house where those you love giggle as they squeeze another chair around the table. Sign me, a luxury real estate broker.
• My wife and I moved from a small 1-BR condo to a 2-BR condo almost twice as large. We're not sure what we should do with all that space; we close the door to the second bedroom. It's just fine living in the same space we were living in before.
• When I was looking to change apartments here in NYC, I had a long fantasy list of things I’d love to have in the new apartment. I’m sure it’s a different list for everyone, but we all have one, right? Size, light, quiet, apartment features, neighborhood, the works -- it’s a fantasy list, so why not go the distance? My apartment hunt was 7 months long, grueling and miserable. My gosh, they’re asking how much rent for that miserable little dump?! And then I walked into it -- an apartment with more than half the important items on my fantasy checklist plus a couple things I hadn’t even dared to dream about. (A working fireplace?!) After moving in, I tried to sustain the Apartment Envy thing and the complaining thing, but it has been really hard. I’m actually really content here. And when I realized that, I felt a major motivating force go out of my life. That ambition to somehow work one’s way up to a truly satisfying apartment -- that’s a key thing in NYC life! It binds us all, it’s something we can all talk about, commiserate about, encourage each other about. We work a little harder, keep more alert, dream bigger. And now it’s gone for me. I don’t want a better apartment; I’m living in it. It’s really weird.