Hello fellow commuters! Congratulations on escaping the dirty trickster fortress that is the NYU Housing System! Yes, I know that Gramercy is made of the same material as Teresa Giudice’s house, and I know that it’s great to live in one of the prison cells at Weinstein and get homophobic chicken nuggets after smoking a bowl in your taped-off bathroom with the shower on. But you know what beats all of that? Waiting half an hour to catch the L train, spending all of your money on beard maintenance (no, not that kind of beard maintenance) and contributing to the mass problem of gentrification!

So you’ve made the leap. You’re telling Manhattan (the most dangerous Man of all) that it’s not him, it’s you, and much like Miranda in Season Six of Sex and the City, you moved to Brooklyn. (Or maybe you’re spending your parents’ savings on a place in the Village or you think you’re edgy enough to live in Harlem. Either way, you’re screwed too.)

But when the ironically ethnic street fairs quiet down and all of the artisanal beer has been guzzled, it will strike you that OH SHIT, you actually have to live here. This delayed sense of panic is normal. The first thing to know about living on your own in New York is that you have thrown yourself into a never-ending black hole in which you will be constantly overtaken by a deep sense of inadequacy and the overwhelming sensation that you’re fucking up. Here are some survival tips.

There are actually two Brooklyns.

If you have, in fact, moved to Brooklyn, it’s important to note that the rest of your existence and any key things that you once thought to be unique to your personality will forevermore be determined by whether you live off the L Train (Williamsburg/Bushwick) or somewhere Near Prospect Park/accessible by real trains that don’t run on fairy dust and dreams (Crown/Prospect Heights, Park Slope/Gowanus, Fort Greene/Clinton Hill).

If you fall in the Williamsburg/Bushwick category, you should get be investing in a bike and re-outfitting your wardrobe with sweaters that have birds on them. If you live anywhere else in the borough, and you’re like me, you’re probably feeling the growing urge to breed and have already started re-appropriating your beer money to save up for a Baby Bjorn. Don’t fight it. Just think about how cute their birthday parties are going to be. In Prospect Park. With treats from here. Oh God. Oh God.

The problem, however, comes in the fact that these two empires can be a little hard to travel between. As L trainers know, or painfully come to learn, the ‘Burg and its Bushwick subsets are only serviced by the L train, which essentially runs as a shuttle through 14th street in Manhattan and down Metropolitan/Bushwick/Wyckoff Avenues. While the M train can certainly be your friend out in Bushwick (don’t gimme that JZ crap) it will also not get you to your friends in Prospect Park.

Ways to beat it: Don’t be afraid of the mysterious G Train. Throughout the time you spent dorming/living in Manhattan you probably never even heard of this train, and that’s because it only runs between Court Square in Queens and Church Avenue south of the park. It connects to the L at Lorimer Street/Metropolitan Avenue and can get you to 4th Avenue/9th Street (where you should go here), Clinton-Washington Avenues (where you should go here), Fulton Street (where you should go here, here, here and here), Long Island City (where you’re only going if you’re going here probably), and Hoyt-Schemerhorn (where you can catch the A and C trains to visit your buddies in Crown Heights). Yeah, depending on where you live it might just be easier to take the damn L to Union Square and take the N/Q/R/4/5 back into BK, but do you really wanna miss out on riding a train that feels like it’s driven by a 15 year old with a learner’s permit? I don’t think so, friend.

Ikea is run by evil sadists who are going to kill you in your own home.

After about five hours of laying on your hardwood floors and marveling at your exposed brick, curled up with that celebratory bottle of champagne like the only lover who ever knew the real secrets of your majestic body, you’re going to realize you need to actually furnish this place. You might think you can just take everything out of your childhood bedroom, but those parents who are probably paying your rent (ugh, fuck you dad, you use money to control me!) might not like this subtle hint that, although you probably technically live closer to the airport now, you’re never going to visit ever again.

And so, around this time, you’ll find yourself on a Red Hook-bound bus toward the magical mystical Swedish Mafia Front known as IKEA. If you’re like me, you pride yourself on a daily exercise routine of reaching up to your kitchen cabinet to grab a box of cereal, and then reaching down, and you have the mechanical/motor skills of a drunk toddler. These aren’t qualities to be ashamed of, per se, but it might just make your inevitable experience with the cheap-o DIY furniture store among the most stressful of your move-in.

Ways to beat it: The Container Store (6th Ave btwen 18th & 19th Streets, Manhattan) sells these which can be a pretty easy storage solution, should building this put you in the fetal position on your kind of gross used carpet that’s already soaked in the beer that you thought would make building this stupid thing easier. If you’re in the Park Slope/Gowanus area, check out the even more amazing Film Biz Recycling. FBR (located on President Street between 3rd & 4th Avenues) was started by a former film producer who saw tons of great props going to waste between projects. In addition to selling clothing, decorations and furniture, Film Biz also rents its merchandise out to filmmakers (pay attention, Tisch kids) by the week. They also lead classes on “re-workshopping” and are super charitable, so shopping there is like buying TOMS. Right? Right.

Time Warner.

If you’re like me, you hate yourself and prioritize any and all facets of the The Real Housewives of… franchise over friends, family and career-related goals. This also probably means that you’re going to want not only a TV but a bitchin’ cable package and DVR in your swankin’ new pad. You might think to yourself, “This is the digital age! How hard can a simple cable hook-up be?” The answer on a scale of 1 to childbirth? This.

Chances are your cable is provided by Time Warner, which is kind of like the worst boyfriend you’ve ever had. They don’t take your calls, they’re non-commital and vague, and it’s like you two don’t even speak the same language (Which, to be fair, is probably because you two don’t speak the same language.)

They will cancel your appointments, they will lose your payment information, and when they finally do install your shit nothing will work. All of this will make you feel wildly under-cultured and totally not cool for even caring this much about TV (how’s that plow through Infinite Jest going, hun? Good? Yeah. Sure. Go fuck yourself.) The important thing to remember is that the meek man on the other end of the customer service line has nothing to do with the incompetence of his tyrannical corporate employer. When you have the urge to yell at him because Bravo won’t play on your TV even though you clearly ordered the package with Bravo, just take a deep breath. Think about his kids, and turn the amount of time you’re put on hold into a drinking game (I came up with a fun one called “Have a Drink for Every Minute You’re On Hold”  which is great because you’re already on the phone, so even though you’ll get pretty bombed, you won’t send any regrettable texts. Post your suggestions below!)

Ways to beat it: Read a book? Or, uh… go outside? Eh.

Just because sexiling isn’t a problem anymore doesn’t mean you don’t share walls.

And that’s not just with your roommates, either.

Ways to beat it: I’d say take the high road. Should your neighbors or roommates complain that the sounds of your boning is disturbing them while they go about their far less interesting bidness, scold them for their lack of sex-positivity and then quietly ask them what ever happened to that guy they were seeing a few weeks ago. Oh really? Oh, that’s too bad.

Don’t masturbate too much.

Isn’t it crazy to have your own room again!?

Ways to beat it: Too easy.

Unlimited Metrocards.

I know $104 a go seems like a lot to shell out, but don’t be that guy who makes everyone miss the train because you have to fight with a machine to sell you a $10 Metrocard. Eventually your friends and roommates will just stop inviting you out. You’re a burden, and not in a charming alcoholic way.

Ways to beat it: Get a bike but also that makes you an asshole too.

Be nice to your neighbors.

And this, fellow “real” New Yorkers (yeah, I said it, you Freshman Who Changed Their Permanent Billing Address With Bank of America to Hayden) is mayhaps the most important lesson of all. Whether you’re in Brooklyn or Manhattan, you’re probably not from here and there are a lot of people who have lived here a very long time. You’re driving up their rent by being so cool and hip and pretty, and they probably don’t care that because of people like you there will be an Organic Grocery Market and/or Music Venue and/or Vintage Store of choice because people like you have decided to nest here. Just don’t be a dick and remember that they were here first.