"I'm meant to be apartment hunting, but I keep getting distracted by real estate porn."

I’m not in a good place.

I mean, geographically I guess I’m fine. I just mean mentally.

Mentally I’m preoccupied. Distracted. I can think about one thing and one thing only: homes I can’t, and will never, ever, be able to afford. Ever.

I’m meant to be apartment hunting. We need to move for a few reasons, but almost all of them start with ‘d’ and end with ‘og.’ We need a place with floorboards, because excessive dog hair on the carpet is giving me chronic anxiety issues. We also want a building with a pool, because it’s 2017 and I’m an independent woman and it’s hot today so I want a goddamn pool PLEASE.

I picture myself like Jennifer Lawrence in Passengers once we find a place with a pool.

Anyway, as is often the case when I do anything, I've quickly become obsessed with apartment hunting. I've started to visit Domain and realestate.com more often than I visit Facebook, and looking at shiny new places fills me with butterflies I haven't felt since my last, fruitless addiction.

I knew where my apartment addiction was taking me - the same place my booking.com addiction took me just months ago: places/things I can't afford, and that leave me feeling empty and sad.

In a moment of weakness, I found myself entering the following details into Domain:

Obviously I set it to rent, not buy. I'm not a monster. I'm also not too fussy about beds or baths. I can sleep in my cinema.

Moments later I was pouring through properties in suburbs I didn't even know existed.

Where/what is Darling Point?

What's a 'Dover Heights?'

It's not important.

What's important is that some of them look like houses from reality TV shows, and I so desperately want to live in them.

I have a few prerequisites for my ideal, unreachable home. Like a view. A view of the beach would be lovely.

Oooooh, like this one in Notts Avenue, Bondi Beach. I like the chairs but also the beach but mostly the plants. Image credit: Michael Epsimos – Epsientertainment.

Can you imagine how good life would be if you lived here? Just moments from the ocean. It would always be sunny (that's a fact).

Spending the day at home would be peaceful and relaxing, instead of cramped and...hairy. Friends would come over and admire my view, and I'd just smile and say, "oh, it's nothing special!"

But it is.

I'd also like an edgy bathroom.

Like when 'edgy' means 'bathtub' because you've never had one. I WANT THIS PLS. Image credit: Michael Epsimos – Epsientertainment.

This is so fancy. The big mirrors. The funky bathtub. The other decor I can't describe because I'm not sure what the words are for them.

I DON'T WANT TO LOOK FOR A PLACE IN MY PRICE RANGE WHEN THIS IS AVAILABLE.

REALITY IS BORING AND I WANT A PLACE THAT LOOKS LIKE IT COULD BELONG TO THE KARDASHIANS.

Like this house on Village High Road, Vaucluse.

You would simply be a cool person if you lived there. How could you not be interesting? Look at that wall hanging. There's an indoor WATER FEATURE.

You don't understand. The places I'm looking at are so...default. There's nothing Kardashian about them. The bedrooms only just fit a bed and maybe a desk.

I WANT A ROOM THAT WOULD FIT FIVE BEDS FOR NO REASON.

I would settle for this one I guess.

I think I love looking at real estate porn so much because it's a brilliant form of escapism. Like watching The Bachelor, or Real Housewives. It takes me away from myself and my life, and lets me go somewhere entirely new - imagining myself in another world, where things are always clean, the dog has always been walked, and the weather is always perfect.

Obviously life isn't this simple for anyone, even the people who really do live in these homes.

But I don't need to think about that. I just need to work out how many friends I'd be able to fit in my cinema.

Listen to Shaynna Blaze on styling your home, on Mamamia's Can't Live Without podcast.