To the Left, To the Left, Everything You Own in a Box to the Left

Oh, Mango...

Mango hadn't talked to me much in a few days, apart from saying good morning. I was a little disappointed, but I let him have his space. After all, the man has a serious girlfriend, so it's unseemly for me to chase after him. If he wants to talk to me, my desk is six feet away from his, so he knows where to find me.

Today, he came over to chat. We got onto the topic of his girlfriend, and I asked if he plans to ask her to marry him. He laughed and said I was going to get him in trouble. I gave him a confused look and asked him what the story was there. He told me that he isn't ready to get married, and the two of them moved in together under extenuating circumstances (he was graduating from school with no job and nowhere else to go). He flatly told me that sometimes you do things for the wrong reasons that work out for the best, but he sounded like he didn't believe that. I said, "But you're happy you're living with her, right?" He unconvincingly said he was.

There was a time (let's call that time "before I met Goose") when this conversation with Mango would have filled me with hope. Now it just grosses me out. He's three decades old, and he's been living with this woman for a year or two and dating her for some period of time beyond that. When he says, "I'm not ready to get married," what he means is "I don't want to marry this woman." That's fair enough, but then he shouldn't lead her to believe he wants to marry her by living with her.*

From what I've seen, situations like Mango's end very badly. At some point, his girlfriend will press the issue of marriage. He will tell her he doesn't want to marry her either directly or, more likely, by continuing to hem and haw about it. She will then boot him out on his ass. So, all he has really done is delay his homelessness by a few years. I don't want to be anywhere near this situation when the explosion inevitably comes. Frankly, this whole thing makes me think less of Mango.

*I'm assuming his girlfriend wants to marry him and that they haven't discussed his reluctance. These assumptions could be false, I concede.

We Met in a Chat Room, Now Our Love Can Fully Bloom

I've been hitting on this new guy lately. Well, he's not really new. I've known him since August, and he's a supervisor of mine at one of my temp jobs. I normally wouldn't flirt with my boss, but after meeting him twice in person, I haven't seen him again, and I think he was promoted so that he's not my direct report anymore. (This may mean he's now my boss's boss and even worse idea for a flirting companion, but I'm going to think positively.)

The good thing about this fellow is that he doesn't seem to have a girlfriend. The bad thing is that I suspect he doesn't have a girlfriend because he's constantly at work and isn't very social (...says the kettle). He likes to joke around a bit on email, but he doesn't seem to have much interest in taking anything to the next level. I don't necessarily mean the next level romantically -- even just the next level of spending face-to-face time together as friends. Today, I told him I would buy him a cookie if he would leave his office. He probably thought I was kidding. He didn't respond. A friend of mine suggested I should offer to lure him out with my womanly charms, but I thought that might be a bit hasty.

I'm not serious about this guy. He's very cute, and I wish he were more receptive to my awkward internet-based advances, but it's nice to have a guy to talk to who isn't cheating on his girlfriend any time he gives me the Sex Eye. It'd be nice though if he decided he was ready to stop being interpals and drink a beverage together in real life.

And Put One of These Fingers on Each Hand Up

As loyal readers of my blog know, I have been looking for a job actively since April 1, 2009. This process is ongoing and beset with disappointments. I have noticed since the current Great Recession started that legal-related HR departments have become rather shitty, for lack of a better word, in their dealings with candidates. This past week, I had two experiences for which there was no reasonable excuse.

First, a friend of mine recommended me for a job a few months ago at a company where he is an in-house lawyer. I had a promising phone interview in which I felt like I really connected with the HR person. She emphasized the importance of a personality fit because of the small size of the legal department, and I thought I had a big leg up because I came recommended by someone already entrenched there. She implied heavily in the phone interview and a few follow-up phone calls and emails that I would be asked to come in for a full round of in-person interviews. Right after I came back from vacation in March, she told me I would be hearing back in about a week regarding this next round of interviews. Three weeks later, when I still hadn't heard anything, I sent an email inquiring about status. I received no response. Friday night, the friend who recommended me said that they hired someone who, while smart, has the personality of "water-logged cardboard." I knew that I hadn't gotten the job, but getting actual confirmation of it was like finding out my ex-boyfriend got married. I knew I didn't have a chance, but finding out for sure that the opportunity was foreclosed still stung. My friend was incensed that I hadn't even received a rejection letter telling me the company hired someone else. He predicts that ol' Water-Logged Cardboard won't work out and that the company will beg me to come in. From his mouth to God's ears.

There could be a million reasons that the company chose to hire someone other than me. It sounds like they made a bad choice, and my friend says that people in the department are annoyed with the hiring coordinator and don't think she has the know-how to hire a lawyer. (It takes expertise to hire a lawyer because of the special skill sets involved in the practice of law. This is not to say you have to be a lawyer to hire a lawyer, but you have to know your shit.) However, after I took the time to participate in a lengthy interview with this company, there is just no excuse in the world not to send me a rejection letter. That's just common courtesy.

Second, last Thursday, I sent in my application materials to a law firm for a job I was excited about because I am actually qualified to do it. Two hours later (a lightning-fast response, even in a good economy), I received an email asking about my availability to come in for an interview. Yay, right? We set things up for this Wednesday. A few hours after that, I got another email from the coordinator lady saying that the partner who is supposed to talk to me is suddenly out of town every day this week except Friday and we'll have to pick another day to do the interview. So far, no day has been chosen. I sent a follow-up email last Friday, and the coordinator responded to say that nothing has been decided yet and implying that I should sit tight and not bother her anymore.

The whole thing is strange. I'm starting to suspect that I was invited in for an interview in error. Maybe they meant to invite someone else, and they emailed me instead? You would think that if a mistake happened, they would just say so and apologize for the inconvenience, but given how badly HR departments have been treating me during this job search, I have no faith that they would do that. Looking for a job is worse than dating and involves about the same amount of emotional anguish.

You Know Them All, I Know It All, Stay Put and Play Along, 'Cause I'm Looking for My Friend

I have been listening to the audio book of Alison Weir's Innocent Traitor this week. It's a novel about Lady Jane Grey, who was queen of England for nine days before being beheaded since she jumped ahead of Mary Tudor in the succession to claim the throne. Or, rather, she was pushed ahead by her parents and others who thought they would benefit more under Queen Jane's reign than Queen Mary's. Reading biographies of Tudor-period royalty when I know the stories and outcomes already is like watching a horror movie. I constantly want to yell, "Girl, don't go in the basement! They're going to chop off your head!" Lady Jane is so tedious and irritating though that I am rooting for the executioner.

Right now, I'm at the part in the book in which her parents marry her off to Lord Guilford Dudley, the youngest son of the Lord Protector, who was governing England while Edward VI (son of Henry VIII) was busy dying young. It's shocking to hear how young people married in those days; girls all seem to be between 14 and 16. Lady Jane and Lord Guilford don't want to marry each other, though obviously no one gives a hoot about that given the era and their high noble ranks. At their betrothal dinner, Lord Guilford tells Lady Jane that he doesn't care what she does with her free time so long as she is his wife in public and in bed, where he promises to show her a good time. Lady Jane herself admits he was a very tall and handsome man. I was listening to this in utter astonishment. This tall, hot guy just wants to hang out with her in public, sex her up on occasion, and then leave her to her hobbies? Where can I find such a man?

Not at work. Mango spent the first half of the week flirting outrageously with me and the last two days all but ignoring me. Logic tells me that his withdrawal is for the best. He still has a girlfriend, so the flirting is inappropriate and it does not go unnoticed in our office. I don't want to get a reputation in the office for flirting with guys who are taken, no matter how accurate that reputation might be (fish have to swim, birds have to fly, I apparently have to lure men away from their girlfriends). Still, it stings to have him pull away so abruptly. He hasn't been rude to me at all, but I feel a distance there.

Mr. Nice Guy

Every time I talk to Mango, it surprises me how nice a guy he is. Like, he's really just a good, decent person. This is a rarity in the world in general and almost a liability in the legal profession. For example, today we were talking about the poor folks who have been stranded in various airports due to the ash from the eruption of the Icelandic volcano. Mango bemoaned the fact that some of these people are being docked vacation days for these events that are indisputably beyond their control and said he hoped that most companies weren't doing that. He also noted that journalists are doing stories about people who have run out of money and battery life on their cell phones and said he hopes the journalists are doing something to help these people instead of just saying, "I'm going to call my wife on my cell phone and decide if I'm going to have steak or steak for dinner. Maybe I'll have two steaks."

It's Years Since You've Been There and Now You've Disappeared Somewhere, Like Outer Space You've Found Some Better Place

I need to learn (and probably never will) that internet stalking old boyfriends is a terrible idea that only leads to pain and misery.

I don't know why, but I decided today that I absolutely could not continue with my life not knowing what was going on with my old boyfriend Doug Funny. Doug Funny and I had a brief, fraught relationship in the summer of 2004 when we were summer associates together. He got an offer and returned to the firm; I did not and did not.

Doug Funny was the first and only time I've ever fallen in love with someone at first sight. He had a girlfriend at the time (quelle surprise, given my history), but he ended his relationship with her (after much sturm und drang) to be with me. Then he broke up with me to get back with her and ultimately moved in with her. I told him I was in love with him, and he basically told me he didn't know what to say to that. We have barely spoken since. The last time we corresponded was in 2007. I sent him a Christmas card in the hopes of rekindling a friendship with him (an idea that seemed less stupid to me at the time than it does now in retrospect). He emailed me once, but that was it. I took that to mean that he didn't harbor any ill will toward me but neither did he have any interest in resuming regular contact.

To be clear, I loved Doug Funny very much. However, I think a lot of my ongoing attachment to him and my great difficulty in getting over him stemmed from the fact that his rejection of me occurred at virtually the exact instant as our summer employer's rejection of me. As any lawyer can tell you, failing to get an offer from the firm where you summer means that you are pretty much fucked. It's not an exaggeration to say that the course of my whole life would have been different if I had received that offer. If I had gotten an offer, I would not have returned to the firm to torture myself with continued contact with someone I loved who didn't want me. I would have leveraged that offer into an offer of employment at one of many other firms that would have welcomed a graduate of my top-ranked law school. Not having an offer branded me as defective. I was never told why I didn't get the offer, and most employers would not have cared anyway. Law firms are notoriously risk averse, and hiring someone whose summer firm didn't want her is a risky proposition. From this calamity, I went on to a clerkship that was, frankly, beneath me to a law firm that was also beneath me (though not as far beneath me as the clerkship). I escaped from that law firm to a very well-respected firm that ultimately laid me off for not having enough experience -- experience that I would most likely have had if I had progressed straight to a firm from law school as I expected to do.

I have probably gotten over the employment situation as much as I'm ever going to. It's not something I think about on a daily basis, but I haven't forgiven (and don't intend to forgive) the people I consider responsible for causing me not to get an offer. (I don't consider myself to be one of those people. I worked hard that summer, and I got good evaluations, and I deserved the offer.) I also can't deny the fact that my life would have been different (though arguably not necessarily better) if I had received the offer. I believe that not getting that offer was more disastrous to my career than my subsequent misfortune of being laid off and thus was the single biggest event in my career thus far.

All that boring career stuff is my way of saying that when Doug Funny broke my heart, his actions combined with another major disappointment and completely shattered me. It was like a giant meteoric impact, leaving an ugly, empty crater in my soul. It changed me -- in some ways for the worse and perhaps in some ways for the better, but it changed me.

I never thought our relationship changed Doug Funny. He was a self-confessed hater of change, which he proved by rejecting the change he made to the romantic landscape of his life and going back to the familiar, broken relationship with his old girlfriend. (I say their relationship was broken because although they had been together for four years, they had never had sex. This was not for religious reasons. It was basically because they didn't want to. That's not normal.) She apparently forgave him for his summer fling, and they resumed their relationship like I never happened. My response to this was to send her all the emails he sent me over the summer, which I'm ashamed of. I don't think she ever got them though because otherwise, he probably wouldn't have been so cordial when we emailed in 2007. So, that was lucky. It wasn't her fault, and I shouldn't have done it, but I wanted to get his attention.

Anyway, despite that, I still thought that I meant something to Doug Funny. I was convinced that he would contact me when he and his girlfriend broke up. I thought that I must be some unanswered question in his life or maybe even the one that got away.

Well, thanks a lot, Google, for showing me how wrong I was. Doug Funny got married last summer. His wife is a very attractive woman with two best friends who post their entire lives on the internet, including photos. I was able to view several photos of their wedding thanks to the two big-mouths his wife is best friends with. (The big-mouths are scrapbookers, so they probably view their blogs as internet scrapbooks. I'm trying not to be judgmental about the scrapbooking, but I'm mostly not succeeding.) Now I feel like he purged the memory of me from his life as easily as he might clear his throat. I'm not someone he was once in love with. I'm someone he probably never even thinks about anymore. I feel like a giant idiot both for having once loved him so much, for still caring about him at all, and for being stone-stupid enough to go looking for things to upset myself with on the internet. God. Fuck you, Google. My sole consolation here is that his new wife looks quite a bit like me. It's a very small consolation.

I agree with Doug Funny's unstated assertion that he and I would not have worked out in the long run. I know nothing about the specific woman he chose, but he was right to marry someone else. I hope she's a cool lady. That said, I consider Doug Funny to be one of the great loves of my life, right up there with Goose, who I consider to be my soul mate. Since he and I split up, I have kissed only one other person (The New Guy), and that wasn't even until February 2009. It is so hurtful to think that he probably barely remembers me at all.

What Is and What Maybe Could Be Someday But Probably Won't

I talked to Mango yesterday and had the chance to employ the girlfriend-mentioning strategy advocated by Tilty. I think it was pretty effective. I asked whether he and his girlfriend had any plans for the weekend, and I inquired about her job search with numerous follow-up questions. He may now think I'm trying to write an unauthorized biography of his girlfriend, but she was definitely mentioned frequently enough that she could not have been far out of his mind during the entire conversation. Maybe I can make this friendship work after all.

What Is and What Should Never Be

I spend a lot of time on this blog talking about guys I've dated or wanted to date who are jerks, but I do have one former love interest who is an awesome guy.

This guy was a friend of mine for a year or so before we dated. A lot of drama went into the decision to try dating, mostly revolving around who was more interested than whom at what point in time. When we finally started dating, we managed to keep it together for only a matter of about two weeks before he called it off. He broke my heart, and I cried every day for a month. It took a lot of time and effort, but we eventually patched things up. By now, I think we've been friends for seven or eight years.

This guy and I have had some major fights during the course of our friendship, some of which involved whether or not to transition to a romantic relationship and some of which involved other things. Every time, we could have let the friendship end, and we usually didn't talk for a few months, but we always found our way back to being friends. I asked myself why that was when I flew to his city to visit him two years ago, and I determined that it was because he and I really love each other.

That realization begs the question: In what way do we love each other? I think the answer is: as good friends.

As I mentioned, this guy is fantastic. He's smart, he's funny, he's handsome, he's kind. He's everything that anyone could ever want. Since we live on opposite coasts now, we see each other rarely, but we keep in touch by phone and email. The past two times I've seen him (the aforementioned visit to his city two years ago and his current visit to my city), I've wondered whether our relationship might take a romantic turn again. After all, we love each other, we each think the other one is awesome, so what's the problem? Why on earth would we not want to be together? I don't know.

I guess I can blame it on chemistry, or maybe on fate. Neither of us seems attracted to each other in a romantic sense. Back when we tried dating, I think we both were trying to convince ourselves that we did, could or should have those feelings, but they weren't there. We're fated to be in each other's lives, but we're not romantically compatible. It's kind of a bummer, really. I mean, it's wonderful to have him as a friend, and I'm glad that our attempts to see if more was possible didn't ruin things, but it's hard to accept that the two of us can care about each other so much and still not be able to make a relationship work.

Boy, You Lookin' Like You Like What You See. Won't You Come Over and Check Up On It?

My work friend (who will henceforth be known as Mango) told me today that he liked my sweater. In my experience, when a heterosexual man compliments a woman on her attire, it's because he wants to sex her up. The only exceptions I can think of off the top of my head are if the man is solicited for his opinion or if it is the woman's wedding day. This is not helping my efforts to be just work friends.

My friend Tilty, herself a girlfriend of many years, told me that the best approach in this situation is for me to bring up Mango's girlfriend as much as possible. Tilty said that Mango's girlfriend needs to be the third person present (in spirit) at all times. That's a good idea in theory, but when a guy walks by your desk in full stride and tosses out a compliment, it's hard to yell after him, "Thanks! Does your girlfriend have a similar sweater?"

The Look of Love

I recently made a new friend at work. This guy is cute, smart and funny, but he's a little socially awkward and is thus kind of an office oddball. I didn't like him when I first met him, but he has grown on me over time. I'm attracted to him, and I get the vibe that he is attracted to me as well.

But.

He has a live-in girlfriend. Even though "romantic attractions to guys with girlfriends" is second on my list of much-loved activities right after "darting to and fro between various foreign countries," I'm trying to reform. Getting interested in guys with girlfriends has led only to tears in the past, and I have no reason to believe it won't continue to lead there in the future. I still think this guy is nice, and I'd like to develop with him a workplace friendship of convenience that makes the day pass more pleasantly for both of us. Win-win!

But.

The dude is giving off serious vibes of being interested. I'm not saying he acts like he's interested in dumping his girlfriend and taking up with me, but he's interested in seeing me in my pajamas for sure. I was in his office today trying to get him to trade my crumpled, ripped dollar bill for a crisper one that the vending machine in our office (a finicky beast) would take, and he gave me total sex daggers when I leaned across his desk to take the money from him. I thought I might have flashed him some boob, but when I leaned over in the bathroom to see what he might have seen, the girls were locked and loaded and not trying to leap into anyone's field of vision. Trouble is brewing here.

If They Say "Why? Why?," Tell 'Em That It's Human Nature

I got a Facebook friend request from The New Guy this morning. This bolsters my opinion that men think that if they just wait for the appropriate length of time, the woman they have offended will have forgotten their anger and the relationship can be reset. Gentlemen of the world, this is not so.

I would love to unleash my resentment of The New Guy as freely as I spewed forth my anger at The Only Living Boy in New York, but The New Guy is abusive and insane enough to make me afraid for my safety if I provoke him. So, I will just ignore him instead.

They Say the Next Big Thing is Here, That the Revolution's Near, But to Me It Seems Quite Clear

I love history. Lately, I have been listening to audio books (since I can do that while I work) by Antonia Fraser and Alison Weir about Louis XIV of France and the wives of Henry VIII of England. Even though the Sun King's reign ended almost 300 years ago in 1715 and the Fat King's reign ended even longer ago in 1547, there are lessons with modern-day applicability to be learned from the their stories and those of their wives and children. To wit:

1. You never know what twists fate might take. When Francoise d'Aubigne became the governess to Louis XIV's bastard children by his mistress, Athenais the marquise of Montespan, I doubt she thought she would one day become his wife in a morganatic marriage. Since the marriage was never formally confirmed and Francoise was therefore not Louis XIV's queen, the common assumption is that they married for love. I find it hard to imagine falling in love with a man after riding herd over his passel of illegitimate brats, but apparently it can happen.

2. You have to know when to hold 'em and know when to fold 'em. When Kenny Rogers shared those immortal words with us, he may have been thinking of Katherine of Aragon. Ol' Katherine married her dead husband's brother, which would have been considered incest at that time if the first marriage had been consummated. Many historians believe it was not, and Katherine certainly harped on the fact of her virginity until the veins stood out in her forehead. In the end, all she did was to make things harder on herself and her child by not twigging to the fact that the king didn't give two shits about her virginity at the time of her marriage. He wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, the old queen was in the way, and he was going to win no matter if Katherine of Aragon had five hymens on their wedding night. Had she agreed, at the very least, to release him from the marriage by going to a convent, she would have had a much better time of it. Certainly Anna of Cleves, Henry VIII's fourth wife, figured this out. When Henry decided she was too ugly to get it up for (I am being crude, but his own accounts at the time were not much classier), she consented to annul the marriage and got to live pretty well after that.

3. Just because someone is your soul mate doesn't mean the marriage will work out. Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn were mad for each other, pretty much literally. They swirled around each other for seven years while Katherine of Aragon was busy being shrill and missing the point, and it took only about five seconds of being married for things to turn to crap. About three years after their marriage, he chose to break up with her by cleaving her head from her body. (Sub-point: Don't get involved with someone who can lawfully have your head chopped off.)

4. There is no sense in holding grudges because someone who hurts you today may help you tomorrow. Elizabeth I had Mary, Queen of Scots beheaded, but then she allowed Mary, Queen of Scots's son, James VI, to succeed her to the throne. It may seem like no one could ever do something to make it up to you after they murdered your mother, but bequeathing to you the throne of England would be a good start.

April, Fools.

One year ago today, I found out that I was being let go from my job. Early 2009 had been pretty good to me. I got involved with The New Guy, and I thought we would probably be married before long. I had been doing well at work after receiving some negative reviews the previous fall (these reviews were unfair, but they nonetheless existed and were something I had to overcome in spite of not having deserved them in the first place). My estranged friend Sniffles had sent me a birthday card in March 2009 in the hope of reconciliation, and I had strongly considered it because I was so happy and wanted to share that happiness with my former friend.

It was truly amazing how quickly everything changed. The New Guy and my employer nearly simultaneously revealed themselves to be duplicitous and unkind jerks. After that, my life went spinning off down a path I had not anticipated. I moved, I went to Peru and met Goose, I worked at various temporary jobs. There were good moments, but it was not a good year.

It was, however, an eventful year. I learned how much change can be packed into one short year. When I found out I was losing my job, I thought I would have a new one before my three-month lame duck period at my old job elapsed. I never dreamed that a year later, I would still want for permanent employment. And, of course, I am not married or even dating anyone at the moment.

Right now, I feel like I'm just treading water. Everything I do is just to keep my head above the surface, and none of it feels like I'm advancing toward my goal or toward any positive outcome at all. I send off resumes and hear nothing. The last two interviews I have had did not result in job offers, and the companies did not even have the courtesy to send me a rejection letter. (I have to say that I think that is very rude. If someone goes to the trouble of being interviewed, the company owes that person the courtesy of a rejection letter.) I've entirely abandoned any serious thoughts of dating. I try to remind myself that I can't know what seeds I've sown will germinate, but it feels like none of them ever will.

I'm trying to remind myself that just as things changed dramatically from April 2009 to April 2010, things might change equally dramatically (and, I hope, for the better this time) between April 2010 and April 2011. I'm just so ready for this ordeal of the employment search to end. It seems like other people I know are finding other jobs with ease, and that makes me feel more discouraged than ever. I know I have to keep trying, but it's hard to keep up my enthusiasm for the project. I am tired of looking for a job. I am tired of getting advice from my friends on what I "should" do (all of them seem to think I should be a writer, which is very flattering, but it's not exactly something you can just magically do and I think it pays only a few people very well at all). I just want to get a job that is at least moderately enjoyable and have some real health insurance again.