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.