Hire Me, I'm a Liar

I'm about to lie on this next batch of job applications.

I've been searching for two years (with periodic breaks/breakdowns) and the only time I made it to an interview, all my charm and optimism did me no good; I had just convinced the hiring manager that I only wanted to use my art degree for freelance work, but what I really wanted was something steady. I loved Arby's and would be thrilled to be the store manager.

She walked away from me, looked at another application, then asked the man how he would get there every day, since he'd listed that he didn't have a car. He wasn't sure, and he'd never been employed... she asked when he could start.

So, lies and cheating, since the truth has gotten me nowhere.

I'm going to stop listing my Bachelor of Fine Arts. No one knows what it means anyway, and it just makes me sound pretentious. My high school degree, as long ago as it was, will do.

I'm going to combine all the jobs I worked at University into one long-term job. If all you do is glance at the page and I've worked five places, it's got to look bad, but my title was "Student Worker" at all of them. So, from now on, I was "Student Worker" at University for three years. When they ask what I did, I'll list what I did where, and my supervisor can be the supervisor from my final position.

I've tried to keep in touch with people from college. One of my two possible professor references (assuming I decided to list my degree after all, in a fit of insanity) has died, and the other is a hipster, which I'm not saying is necessarily a bad thing, but I admitted that I had a PC in front of him and he couldn't stop laughing. By the way, Macs are for people who don't know how to use computers.

I went there.

One of my close college friends has since decided I'm lame because I was unable to get a job within a month, and because she got married to a wealthy guy and I was apparently a charity project, so I've lost her (good riddance), whittling my contact list down to...

K: Friend in college. Trained me for a week in a student position she was leaving.
Peer: Trained for position as graphic designer at University.

E: Friend. We met while writing role-play for a Harry Potter website.
Peer: Creative writing, group projects, personal research.

H: Friend: Also met role-playing on a Harry Potter website.
Peer: Creative writing... You can see where I'm going with this.

I know, normally when one lies on an application it's to make oneself look better. You want to inflate your own importance, make yourself seem even more valuable than you are. Well, I tried that for the first year, when I was actually looking for Graphic Design positions. However, it's been almost three years, and I just need a job. I need money so that I can stop living with relatives and feed myself without government assistance.

Hey, you say. This is another complaint post about unemployment!

It's about time you caught on. Seriously though, it's a completely different angle this time.

I'm a terrible liar. I can do it on paper, but if one of these places actually calls me in, I can imagine the look on my face if someone said, "You've never had a job, at your age?" I know, it's a hamburger-flipping job and saying That's right, never been employed, I've always depended on the kindness of strangers. *cough* I mean, I cared for the home while my significant other/family member/pet iguana brought in the money is more likely to get me that entry-level position than Yes, I have a degree, but I swear I want to work here, and I'll do a really awesome job!

It's funny, in that way that's only funny if you tilt your head; when I was applying for Design jobs, my friends and family got onto me about being picky. Now I tell them that Pizza Hut sent me a "We currently have no positions which you are qualified for" e-mail and get responses like, Well, duh. That's because you're over-qualified.

My sister tells me (though I already know) that I have to stop submitting my resume. I have a nice resume. The guy from Apple was impressed, though sadly he hated my portfolio and wasn't hiring anyway.

I have several resumes. I have my Design resume, my Clerical/Office resume, and my Generic resume, which states my objective as looking for a "challenging" position. Why the hell does the McDonald's website ask you to upload your resume if it doesn't want it? That's the trap I fall into. I see the "Upload Resume or CV" button, and I have to click it.

But no more.

I have a high school diploma from many years ago, and have never worked. I have low standards, and will take any job you offer me. Speaking of which, do you know anyone who's hiring? I'm willing to move if relocation is paid for.

Alone in Nowhere

I am lonely. The group of friends I had in college has narrowed down to two, neither of whom lives in this part of the country. Somehow, socializing with family doesn't do it for me. I can spend hours talking to them, and I'm only more tense at the end because frankly, my family doesn't like or understand me.

This isn't the kind of they don't understand me that I spouted when I was in high school. I suffer from clinical depression, and they can't wrap their minds around the concept of not just "cheering up." We have different interests. I'd rather stay inside where I'm physically comfortable than sit by a lake. I enjoy exploring the Internet. I enjoy researching something to death in order to write a one-page short story that I'll never show anyone. I tend toward solitude, and my family is made up of highly social people. Overwhelmingly social people. Opinionated people.

Not that I'm not opinionated. The problem, however, is that they have difficulty accepting other viewpoints as valid, and when someone explains motivation for a different viewpoint, they tend to zone out and start thinking up their next argument instead of listening.

So I'm ruling out calling my father to chat about my day-to-day life. Just saying.

That leaves me with two friends, with whom I can only communicate online. I have no phone. I cannot afford a phone. I believe I have three dollars to my name right now, and every two weeks I get between thirty and forty dollars of child support, so driving to the nearest city (an hour and a half) to find an open social group other than the Eastern Star Lodge isn't feasible. To be fair, I have been to the lodge before. I was just bored and uncomfortable being stared at by the other members, all of whom are at least forty years older than me.

I've mentioned this before, but my friends have lives. So what do I do? This is a legitimate, honest question. I've set emotion aside for now to deal with this logically, mostly because I'm wiped out from entertaining my grandmother for five hours. She's lovely to talk to now and then, but it's difficult making conversation when I can't talk about any of my interests.

Sample of Interests (moi)
computers
internet and internet trends
contemporary art
typography
fiction writing
internet research: most recently, BDSM and D/s relationships, and rubber ducks. Totally unrelated, I swear.
abnormal psychology

Everyone's got some oddball combination of things they enjoy discussing, and that's not a finite list, but perhaps you can see the potential for conflict when I'm living in a small town near another small town known for its lake and fishing.

So now I've bored you to death. Pumpernickel. Quartz. Bonobo chimpanzee. That ought to spice things up.

This one time at the cheese factory, a chunk of fat-free cheese fell on the floor, thereby making it inedible. Since it smells like rubber in large volumes, I used my box knife to carve it roughly into the shape of a ball, then dropped it on the floor. Nothing as awesome as a SuperBall, but the fact that it bounced well enough to entertain me for a while is worth noting. I don't eat fat-free cheese, by the way.

Reasons to Live

It's that time of deepest winter when it seems like the sky has always been steel gray and everything visible from here to the horizon has always been shades of brown and death. It's also that time when hopelessness is at its worst and the "Seasonal Affective Disorder" has piled so thickly onto fifteen years of ongoing clinical depression that it's hard to remember why I bother living.

While searching the All-Powerful Internet for reasons to live, I realized that no one else's list is going to do me much good. Sadly, the first two I pulled up listed sex as at least one of the authors' reasons. Sorry, not going to work for me.

I had such a list in high school. I was reading a Dean Koontz book and the main character had one which, among other things, mentioned a certain burger from a fictional burger joint. After a moment's wondering whether a food item could really be worth living for, I thought of one that I actually considered enough of a reason to make it another day or so. Unfortunately, Pizza Hut's triple-decker, stuffed crust, deep dish, heart-attack-of-bliss no longer exists, and the stuffed crust alone isn't enough. Plus, I can't afford fast food.

I'm living on $150 per month. I live at my grandmother's house, but that's still less than two hundred dollars per month, and I use half of that on gas driving my daughter places. School, mostly. The library. Wal-Mart.

I spend a chunk of it on Internet because the place I live contains some houses, a hardware store, and a bar, none of which I'm interested in, and the nearest town is fifteen miles. I have to buy my own toilet paper and whatnot, so that leaves me with nothing. But I digress.

Reasons to live... Not leaving grieving family members used to be a big one on my list. I think they'd get over it, though. They'd be horribly ashamed of me being so weak, but I'd be dead, so shame means nothing. Ditto for leaving behind debt and a storage unit full of most of my belongings.

Fear of Hell is on my list, but it's not as powerful as it should be at the moment. When in the throes of misery, when you feel nothing inside but seemingly endless self-hate and misery, eternal suffering doesn't look like much of a difference. You must keep in mind, of course, how very important perception is, and that logic doesn't work against persistent, irrational thoughts.

I hate you.

No, you're just miserable. You know you're smart, you know you have artistic talent, and that you're a good writer. You know people love you.

So? Everyone hates you for that alleged smartness, and I don't care if that's a real word, because you know how it pisses off your dad any time you mention anything he thinks you might have learned in college, because he assumes you're talking down to him.

But you can't help what people think or assume, and you know he loves you.

So? He doesn't like you. If it wasn't for your daughter, he wouldn't care if you visited.

Probably not... But my sister likes me.

Yeah, and that does you a lot of good. Everyone's already ashamed of you for being such a failure. You can't get a job in two years of unemployment, and everyone's sure that you're not really trying. In fact, you're not! When was the last time you filled out an application?

...I'm sorry! I'm sorry, but every time I try to, or even think about it, I just think what a failure I am, and what a waste of time it'll be to fill out yet another application for another job I won't get! It's a waste for me, and for the hiring manager who has to look through all that crap already!

You don't even TRY, so stop pretending.

I'm suffering from long-term depression! I need to give myself an emotional break, forgive myself a little. It doesn't have to be perfect...

If you're only second-best you won't get the job, so yes, perfection does matter!

So does luck! I could get lucky!

People don't get places with luck, they get it with hard work!

I try!

Liar. You don't try. You nap half the day on the couch because you don't want to think, and because you hope desperately that your grandmother's cats will sleep on you and maybe you'll feel worth something.

But...

You're worthless! It's no wonder everyone says "I wish I knew how to help you," but no one ever actually does anything!

They try to give me advice...

Because "You need to get a job" is advice. You didn't already know that?

Well yes, I did, I want a job, but...

You're a f~ing loser and you always will be.

But I went to college!

Pretentious bastard!

No, that's not what I meant! I meant, I went to college full-time and I graduated, and I had a part-time job and an internship, and...

And you couldn't get your bills paid. You realize it's been two years, and you still owe hundreds of dollars to the utility companies before they'd hook you up, even if you WERE competent enough to get a job and find your own place to live? And your grandmother doesn't even want you in her house anymore because she can't deal with the noise of a child, and because you aren't social enough to be the companionship she needs.

No! I'm smart, and I have proof! I graduated college! I learned common sense that I didn't have when I was a teenager! I have friends! I have a friend who loved me enough to fly me halfway across the country to see her, and another friend who would gladly do the same if she had the money! They love you, and they think you're smart and clever and they like you as a friend, and if you told them that you desperately needed them...

They'd apologize for leaving and promise to talk to you later.

Because they have school and jobs...

Which are more important than you.

Which is how it's supposed to be.

Loser.

Actual mental conversation, there. Not really a dramatic reenactment. Oh yeah, I was supposed to be listing reasons to live. Number one about half an hour ago was that my friend told me I have to keep living, whether I want to or not. If I manage to think of a number two, maybe you'll get a better blog post next time.


Reasons to Live:

1. My friend told me to.
2. Because there has to be more than one reason, or making a list was pointless.

99% of people who read this won't re-post it.

People who have backbones, people who read their friends' statuses, people who think abuse is bad and people who believe any number of honorable things will NOT repost this because they see it so much that it begins to lose meaning, or they're tired of reading that they're unworthy if they don't re-post or click like.

Am I really not your friend because I wouldn't post the third letter of my last name? I read the post, must I then prove my worth by responding to every chain-post on every friend's wall?

Yes, I added you to get friends on an application. I needed more neighbors, more vamps in my clan, whatever, and I added hundreds at a time a few times. But if you've been around more than a couple months, I've kept you for a reason. This is where you can pretend to get worried that I've stalked you, because I've visited your profile. I've kept up with your public status updates, and we probably have more in common than the games we choose to play, though that alone says something.

Some of you may have noticed we don't even play the same app anymore. Are you still a wizard? How many farms do you have? I may not remember, but when you change your avatar, I notice. I send a prayer your way when you ask, but I don't click like because hell, you don't know me. I don't know you, either. I know this guy's cat is stupid, but hilarious, I know this woman is beautiful in a way that implies she doesn't realize it, but it's all superficial.

Okay, so maybe I'm really not your friend.

I don't click that stuff for my family or my "real life" friends either, though. Really, Aunt So-And-So? You're going to delete everyone who doesn't have the backbone to re-post a copy/pasted, recycled, mass-produced comment? Delete me, then.

In "real life" I'm one of those people who's quiet so much of the time that people forget I'm there. They either assume I know everything and tell me nothing or tell me things several times because they're sure no one has mentioned it. Thanks, Dad. You told me about your congestion (read: constipation) medicine when you called two hours ago. I haven't forgotten. No, Grandma, I wasn't told that my cousin is having a bridal shower tomorrow, I did not plan on going and I have nothing to give her.

Don't re-post this if you don't care. Don't re-post it if you're too busy. Don't re-post it simply because the title has challenged you, or because you labor under a belief that people will think you uncaring or unpatriotic if it doesn't immediately grace your Facebook wall.

If it pisses you off, however, you may re-post it to share another example of how much stupidity exists on the internet. You may also re-post it if you think it makes a good point, or if the whim takes you, or if you're bored.

And remember, even though 99% of my readers WILL NOT RE-POST THIS, between 28% and 76% of statistics are made up on the spot anyway. So sayeth I.

Build a Bridge

I'm officially over living in the middle of nowhere.

I used to live just north of the middle of nowhere, but I don't anymore, and the difference is huge. I live in a town with no gas station or grocery store. There is, however, a hardware store, a bar, and at least five churches. For around five hundred people, if you count the area around the town, which actually belongs to no town at all. The church I've been to actually gets about twelve people on Sundays.

But I digress.

My current gripe is about the lack of Internet access. No one (including my grandmother, who is paying the bills while I'm unemployed) can afford it. The options are Verizon, which is apparently too pricey, and this guy who gets such a good connection that, for a fee, he'll give you the access code and you can use his. That's what everyone has. And yet, last month, for $40, the internet worked in five-minute blocks for maybe a total of an hour, maybe less. This needs no exaggeration to be true.

I have a smartphone, which is my lifeline because I can't in good conscience ask grandma to pay $40 (or, at dial-up speed, $30) for Internet that doesn't work. This leaves me unable to do a lot of things that I do online. Of course, I wasn't able to do them the past month and a half either, so the difference is that now we're not paying for it.

I love Facebook. Or, I loved Facebook. There's only so much to do on a mobile phone, which means my apps are all null and void. Can't check on my farm, restaurant, city, etc. on my phone. The family gets pissy when I don't announce things, such as the vacation I'm currently on, and earlier I got a message on one of my photos that my cousin was mad at me for being in California and not telling her. My cousin who lives in Vegas, and who'll be visiting California after I've left. Sorry, cuz, that I didn't FB-alert "the fam" that I'd be in the state.

I'm only here for a week, and my daughter is going to the mountains, the beach, Disneyland, Universal Studios, and Hollywood. I really can't visit the six-plus cities from San Diego to San Francisco where extended family resides, especially when I'm staying with the friend who paid to fly me out here, and I don't have a rental car.

Those are not complaints, by the way. Those are the fun part. The complaint is that my family is butthurt that I'm not doing my duty.

Back to the point. No Internet once I get home. I'm on a badass little two-screen setup right now that makes me want nothing more than to pull up Photoshop and multi-task the hell out of it to see what it can do, and I'm soaking it in while I'm here. In the evenings, between running around doing glamorous and exciting things, none of which involve trying to explain my life to people who don't try to explain theirs to me, either. [/bitterness]

Depression is Depressing.

I am miserable with my life. It doesn't count as suicide if you just ask God to hurry up and smite you, right?

To reassure anyone who thinks this theatrics, I am currently technically homeless, and living with a family member who needs help. This house has been seriously compared to Hoarders by worried family. I live out of a suitcase because my personal belongings, including my bed and perishable food items (which were mistakenly delivered with the rest), are divided between several people's storage units. I hope someone finds the food before spring, though I'm sure that by now it's been cold enough for the water bottles to explode and warm enough for the milk to sour. There are four cats in the house, three of which use the litter box, four in the garage who don't have a litter box, but get let outside sometimes, and two in the back room who neither have a litter box nor go outside. One must enter and exit through the garage, which, no offense to those up above, stinks to high heaven.

My friends live online because those I graduated college with have moved on. I have an amazing phone, a few really amazing friends, and severe, sometimes debilitating depression, as of about fifteen years ago. I used to tell myself that the worst that could happen would be ending up homeless and alone, but I've pushed my "worst" standards to far more horrible things. I am not currently being eaten alive by maggots while impaled in a hole full of spikes and having hail pound into my open eyes. Please, please, God, please, don't use my sense of sarcasm against me and make that happen.

Irony (or not, if you know all the technicalities of the word) is that just over a year ago I was set to graduate college, then move to the Golden State of California, where my daughter would attend a private school for hardly anything, thanks to one of those amazing friends, and I would be nearer the kind of job opportunities I'd dreamed of. My ex questioned me, gave me the verbal go-ahead, and took our flight information so that goodbyes could be said, we got the kid a cell phone for easy contact, got a Facebook so they could chat easily, etc etc.

Sunday before graduation, a week and two days before the flight, yours truly was delivered of a restraining order and a motion to take any and all custody away from me. After a week of locating a lawyer (since if you don't have one, at least here, the case defaults to the other person), during which I didn't sleep and unknowingly contracted pneumonia, I completed no final exams and was given a pity D to graduate in a class I'd been acing. Damned final exams. I don't really remember graduation. Had a high fever that day, and was super-proud that no one could tell how dizzy I was.

Anyway, after bouncing from place to place, I failed out of an attempt at grad school (admittedly a subject I ended up hating) and here we are. The child is tired of moving and living with other people, and despite the emotional abuse she suffers when with her other parent, I wonder if I'm doing any better.

"You should get on disability."

It's really disheartening to be told this, especially following a short speech about not being capable of handling a real job and needing to be realistic. It is disheartening both from one's (ex)friend, and from one's father. There is no explaining to some people that working for minimum wage 5 hours per day, 4 days per week isn't much motivation for someone who feels worthless. There is no explaining that 8 hours a day 5 days a week at a job one loves, being needed there instead of expendable, might just possibly maybe somehow ease the feeling of being useless, and that being paid enough to live on one's own might instill a sense of greatly needed pride, thereby propelling one out of one's dismal hole of hopelessness. And unfortunately, when pressured so much to get a job I've already not been hired at for years, it is difficult to contemplate looking for that big fish. It only makes the whole "not capable of handling a real job" thing all that more real, and the big fish looks like a dried-out goldfish the cat left behind the couch. It was shiny once, but all that's left now is a lost dream.

And yes, this is probably all ridiculous and blown out of proportion, but no matter how I try to correct myself, I can't get out of the mindset that "If you were capable of getting an A, but got a B, you might as well have failed."

I have now been struggling with depression for half my life. It doesn't get better for long at a time. The littlest setback is heartbreaking, and losing a dream that was in my grasp broke me. I've never been as close to hurting myself as I was a year ago, and though I don't intend to—in fact, I intend not to—it can always be worse, and that's what I'm afraid of. If I can hardly cope the way I am, how will I manage another ten years of this? Another twenty?

My depression is being treated, but there's no cure. I've apparently trained my mind to push aside my worries, and so anything that worries or distresses me is forgotten. I don't remember to do laundry when I have the time, nor to job search. If it does pop in, I'm busy, or I'm in a bad mood, or I'm too sleepy to do anything (or so I tell myself), and if I can't fill out an application properly, and better than anyone else, then it was not only a waste of my time, but a waste of the hiring manager's time. I feel like a waste of time.

I haven't blogged in forever because I had no internet access aside from my smartphone, which a friend thought I deserved, no matter that I don't (but it's mine! *clutches and hisses*). I don't even know where I'm going with this. Sudden memory loss in the middle of a sentence isn't odd when attempting to discuss worrisome or depressing topics, either.

Okay, I dragged you all down now, and gave you a taste of a long-term, severe depressive's thought process. I wish I could think of another cheese factory story right now, but since I can't, here:

Margaret Bourke-White. At the time of the Louisville Flood (1937)

It could always be worse, right?

Types of Depression

Suicide Prevention, Awareness, and Support

Changes in the HUD Definition of “Homeless”

Exempt From Reading: A Ranting Post

If I could do so and live, I would tear my brain out right now and stick it in a jar on a shelf somewhere for a while so I could have some peace and quiet. My lizard light isn't pulling its weight, and I'm wary of sitting under 100% power for a full hour, but it looks like that's what I'll have to do in order to stay awake. Still, my brain won't shut off. I could easily fall asleep on the hand-me-down futon three feet away, with no pillow and only a throw blanket to keep warm, but I'm so tense right now that I could scream.

So one time, at the cheese factory, I don't know what the hell the people in the other room were thinking, but they came in with a giant piece of scrap cardboard on which someone had drawn a cartoonish picture of a person mooning the viewer. After telling them they were crazy to spend their work time on such a project, I pointed out that there was way too much butt showing to not add a tattoo. "Do Not Enter" was my contribution.

Back on topic, now that I've calmed some. I'm sleepy most of the time, no matter how much or how little sleep I get. That, in addition to unemployment stress, makes it difficult to hold a solid train of thought, which makes it difficult to keep myself on-track and searching for a job. I got stumped on a cover letter and did nothing for about three days trying to convince myself that I was, somehow, still a competent human being.

Perfectionism can be crippling.

"If you got a B and you were capable of getting an A, you might as well have failed," my mom told me, and though I logically know it isn't true, I still fight it. I couldn't think of anything genius to write in that cover letter, and the immediate first thought, after a few false starts, was that if I set it aside, I'd be able to do it later, when my brain wasn't mush. But my brain continued to be mush, and when I reasoned that a decent cover letter (as opposed to an epic one) was better than not applying for the job, that voice in the back of my head told me that it would be a waste of time and effort, both for myself and the hiring manager, if I sent in a cover letter that just got me tossed in the trash anyway.

Yeah, seriously. I see where the problem in that logic is, but I also see the somewhat twisted point. So, you're the psychologist, here. What the hell am I not paying you for? I need answers, dammit! Solve my problems for me while I'm over on the futon, all right?

Before I go, however, I'll give you an update on last time. I managed the Facebook message and did my best with probing questions, and an attempt at friendship was agreed upon. I was not offered the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on a platter this time, but this weekend we'll be watching a Harry Potter movie or two. From the futon. Which is calling me.

ZZZ Z Z Z zzz z z z ... . . .

The "F" Word

No, the other "F" word. The one that people don't like to hear from the subject of their romantic interest. Yes, that one. But let's go on.

The movie was great. I wasn't expecting the Harry/Hermione topless makeout scene, no matter that I'd been warned, then smirked at (a sign that H~ was serious and looking forward to being proven right). They did a good job of condensing a 500-page camping trip into something epic. You're not here for a movie review, though.

My date didn't look directly at me the entire night. I'm not unfortunate-looking and had been complimented via text-message on my Facebook picture, so I know it wasn't because my face was offensive. I looked pretty damned good, actually. I can understand not being as talkative in person as you are in text, considering I'm the same way, but you know the silence has gone on too long when your date turns on the car stereo.

Not to say we didn't manage to talk. At one point I was retelling the glory of Prom Night in Hollywood and Other Interesting Tales, and we compared the kind of history you learn in the Midwest versus the kind you learn in Southern California, but conversation aside, no sparks. Not one. Even if my date had nice teeth there would have been no sparks.

I'm grateful to the friend who tried to set us up. Texting was genius and I could see hanging out with this person again. No romance though, and that's why I haven't accepted a second offer to go see the Effing Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I am not shitting you, if you'll pardon the language. This person offered to buy me an inexpensive tv because mine is in storage, mentioned us stargazing at their place with their telescope, subscribed to my effing YouTube (which they'd have had to find first), and commented on three of my pictures.

Quoth a friend: That's what happens when you talk to computer savvy people.

The consensus is that searching someone is normal. However, most of us keep our searches secret. We go look at our blind date's photos, or maybe we even Google their screen name, and if we're a little crazy watch the videos they made five years ago, but for God's sake, don't leave messages on everything until you've known them at least a week. This person has now added me on Facebook, YouTube, AIM, and YIM, commented on the only three photos that don't actually have people in them, subscribed to my videos, and told me via text what they thought about these things they found. Add to that the fact that I get texted from noon until probably five, then again from about seven until I say I have to go to bed, and I'm feeling smothered. From someone I've seen in person once, known less than a week, and haven't ever made eye contact with.

So I've been looking for gentle ways to let this person down. We got along, but I'm not interested in romance. From them. The Almighty Internet says that we haven't known each other so long that an e-mail is a crappy way to send a tasteful note, but how can I do that when I just keep getting texted? I'd say stalker potential, but I'm counting on the fact that we live a good hour and a half drive apart to discourage that.

If it wasn't a mutual friend who'd set us up, this would be easy. I'd just send a text that they're great, but I'm not interested, and it would be done. I don't want to hurt my friend, though. She hand-picked someone, knowing how long it's been since I dated, and said, Here, I give you this, my friend, who I, your friend, find worthy for your attentions. She couldn't have predicted all this.

I usually make a huge deal out of things, but this is justified, right? Even after just one date?