He sends an e-mail a few days ago to ask if I'm still available.
Yes
I write back.
In the text, I am cool, calm and collected. In my mind, I add exclamation points and extra yeses in bold capital letters. I am available; I'm willing.
Just to make sure he gets my response, I call and leave a message on his answering machine.
I hear nothing for several days, but yesterday his e-mail address pops up in my Hotmail account. The message is just one line: I'll let you know in a few days.
My heart drops and I bang on the sides of my monitor in frustration. A few days. What does that mean?
This dating dance of high highs and even lower lows, a move which I thought I had left behind in high school, has snuck up on me again. It's no coincidence; as soon as this internship hunt started in the fall, my role in the college dating intrigue disappeared. I've gotten my fix of oh-my-God-why-isn't-he calling-me-back fretting. This has filled my drama quota for the year.
I don't need first dates; I have interviews. It's the same: fretting over my outfit, worrying about makeup and agonizing over conversation style. The only difference is that for dates I arrive fashionably late - for interviews, I'm early.
But right now I'm in one of those low lows. I try not to let the rejection get to me: brewing up a cup of coffee, turning on my stereo, whining to sympathetic roommates and hiding away with a book. But the phone remains curiously silent. My e-mail account fills with mass school e-mail and forwards from friends.
I'm in good company, apparently. In 2002, the Portland (Maine) Press Herald received 225 applications for two reporting spots; Anchorage Daily News got 150 for a couple positions. The St. Petersburg Times received 1,000 applications for 27, according to editorandpublisher.com.
In the meantime, I'm trying everything.
I'm reading The Rules. My father, always the businessman, sends me clippings from The Plain Dealer on job-hunting techniques. These employment section tips are probably only a bit more useful than Cosmo's top ten ways to snag a guy.
I'm playing phone tag. It's the same agonizing should I leave a message or just call back later game from my dating days.
I'm aiming for interested, but not desperate. Conscientious, but not crazy.
I admit that I'm lowering my standards. I've become that-type-of-girl. I'd say yes in a heartbeat to whoever asked me. I'd give up my dreams of pouring coffee for The New York Times, making copies for The Washington Post or fact-checking for the Boston Globe for whatever small-town, backwoods newspaper calls.
And I don't even care if you pay me. 17
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Emily Patterson
