Making your next move your best move

There are a ton of similarities between dating and looking for a new job. Both tasks consist of a lot of putting yourself out there with no real guarantee of any interest from the other party. You have to figure out the right amount of information to give initially and try to read in between the lines for signs that you might be a mutually beneficial match. You also have to deal with competition from an unknown amount of other suitors. As hard as it is (usually) to gauge what the opposite sex is thinking, it's even harder to gauge the same thing from a potential employer. Some will be straight up with you, but the vast majority seem to be determined to have you jump through a lot of hoops. Like an overly kind missed connection, they'll want you to keep in touch afterwards in case something comes up down the road. Rejection is tough to swallow though, and even tougher when your livelihood is tied up in it. As mixed as the results of dating might be, you'll still go home afterwards for the most part unscathed and live to fight another day. With job hunting, the losses are a lot harder. In both instances, the temptation to settle can be overwhelming. But you have to ask yourself if you think that you could be ok with being stuck in that life, mired in some ultimately mediocre situation with no real opportunity to escape because you let it pass you by. For the time being, I'm resolved to chase down my dreams. How long this drive will last, I'm not sure. I am sure that I hate being stuck and as long as I can I will keep striving to put myself in an optimal situation.

Computer love

One of my favorite r&b songs from the late 80s is Computer Love by Zapp and Roger. They made the song way before the advent of the modern Internet but I like it a lot and rarely get to use my encyclopedic knowledge of slow jams so I thought I'd borrow the title. But I digress. As I mentioned in my prior post dating post-college kinda sucks. Sometimes you get lucky but more often then not you end up with some kind of fling or no connection. The world of Internet dating is treacherous but at least spares the face to face rejection of classic dating protocol. With free sites like okcupid, you can look through endless amounts profiles of people in your area and forge a relationship of sorts from your shared interests. Naturally this type of setup breeds hookups and from what I've heard from various girls, seems to be fodder for guys looking to add more notches to their belts. I've never been that type but, eager to meet new people, I made a profile a few months after my move. For awhile I got a few hits from girls I wasn't interested in. I was a bit discouraged but kept at it. Then things began to pick up, right as I was considering deleting my profile and taking up a hobby of some sort. To date, no pun intended, I've met four girls from the site, all really different and all pretty cool for the most part. It's always interesting to meet someone in person that you've only vibed with on the phone and to see if their physical presence either enhances or detracts from any preconceived notions you might have had. All things considered its on par with your typical friend facilitated blind date which is always an opportunity for disaster. But honestly what's the better option for new transplants to a big city, especially those with limited pre-existing connections to the area and on fixed post-grad budget. I always leave my posts fairly open ended because the topics I pose are very fluid issues, constantly changing, solving and unsolving themselves. I'll close with this tidbit of wisdom: just go for it. In my experience its much better to deal with rejection than spend your idle moments pondering what ifs.

Rather be with you

One of the biggest issues that you never see coming on your way out of college is making new friends (romantic or otherwise). In college it is ridiculously easy to meet people. Hell, your class schedule alone affords you with a constantly changing cast of new friends (and enemies) and potential paramours. There are parties every weekend and people are for most part willing to meet new people on a pretty frequent basis. In the real world, you have significantly fewer chances. There's work, which is the epitome of a mixed bag no matter where you earn your check, and depending on the situation the faces might not change for awhile (if ever). There's bars and clubs, where some people thrive and clichés abound. And then there's... Oh wait not a whole lot else. There are always the random encounters: a chance meeting on the street or at a library but those are the stuff of movies and tv shows and never happen as often as you'd want. Decades of creepy guys and sensational news stories have taken a lot of luster out of the friendly stranger approach to meeting people. There's a whole other world of connections happening in the form of online dating. This world is full of disappointments, one night stands, epic stories and almost merits its own entry (which it very well might get in the near future). As someone who's been on multiple Internet incited dates,, I won't bash on it too much. I will say this it's a less than idyllic way to go about things but again not completely without its merits. All of the methods discussed only really help with meeting the opposite sex though. As any guy will tell you (and maybe some girls), its tough to make quality friends of the same sex. Looking back, it's always been more or less an organic process. You meet, talk a bit, share some common interests, and then awkwardly exchange contact info. Then, barring any mishaps, you're friends. With drastically different social spaces that accompany the initial part of adulthood, it becomes more of a challenge to find quality friends. There always seems to be a bit of a gap whether it be ideologically or financially. So where then does the impressionable young post grad find companionship? The consensus seems to be that you just get lucky. Maybe I'll have an addendum for this by time I tackle the wacky world of online dating in my next post.

Carpe aeternum diem

One of the toughest adjustments to make after college is getting used to how time moves in the real world. In college you get used to operating on truncated schedule. Projects are dumped on you in pairs and sometimes triples and you are left to figure out how to accomplish them in relatively short periods of time. Your schedule and consequently your day to day life can change completely within the span of a few months. In reality or after college, time moves very slowly. For most jobs the tasks are confined to working hours. You can be working on the same project for months and even years. Your life can follow the same mundane routine with little to no variation. So how to deal with this complete shift in pacing? Some people get drunk, a lot. Others get themselves into crazy adventures (often also accompanied by alcohol). Some workout incessantly and others veg out. The post grad's plight is simple. How do I use this free time without depleting my limited financial resources and not get bored with the 9-5 routine? HBO only has so many shows. You can only wake one night in a pile of Pbr tall boys with Arliss playing in the background before this type of lifestyle gets old. It seems that solving this particular quandary might take awhile; fortunately I've got an abundance of time.

October Fifth

So, you've spent the last four or five years living in this awesomely insulated bubble that is the modern American university. Its easy to meet people and you have no major concerns. You have no real financial assets so to speak, but you're in college so who cares. Then the day comes where you receive that diploma that you've busted your ass for and your family and friends congratulate you as if you've just won the lottery. All recent graduates fall into a few categories: the idealists (your peace corps enlistees, backpackers, world explorers,etc), the overachievers (the people with lucrative jobs and internships lined up upon graduation), the grad schoolers, and the others. If you fall into the last category, lets face it you're pretty much on your own. Some of us (present company included) find internships (unpaid of course) in our chosen (for now) fields and hope to gut out an entry level position at some company. Others take a temporary (once again hopefully) position and hope to bid their time until something better comes along. Still others go home to live with mom and dad while they "figure things out". There's no manual for how to be successful in the real world and nearly all of us can admit how truly little college prepares your for the real world. The only thing college does well these days is prepares you to live near the poverty line and to deal with substance abuse (again hopefully). So what recourse is there for the 56% of recent graduates who are either unemployed or miserably underemployed? Do we pack it up and jump on the sinking financial ship that is life abroad in Europe or remain here and grind it out in this country that has proved time and again that it doesn't give a shit about socio-economic equality? This question is somewhat rhetorical but still is one that I personally will need to figure out for myself. It's tough to stay upbeat when they keep telling you that you're not qualified for an entry-level position, when you're passing out your resume like a desperate guy handing his number out at a party, and trying to re-establish yourself in a new place after being so firmly rooted in the same small community for half a decade. For most people, life isn't easy. It's rife with difficult choices and heart-breaking consequences. But sooner or later, you are rewarded for your efforts, right?

At least that's what they taught me in school.