Zombeck.com

There are no two things more humiliating than interviewing for a job and dating.

It’s not easy to be on your game, at your best, and on your best behavior for something that inevitably, at the end of it all, will strip you of your dignity and self respect.

The night before is spent lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. You try desperately, usually in vain, to remember all the wonderful things you have to offer: I’m good with people, have a degree in whatever the hell I went to college for, sensitive, smart, knowledgeable, average, comfortable in any position (wink wink), and generally loyal.

You pick your clothes hoping for a sense of style and to show the real you, but not the you they don’t want to see. You shower longer than usual and clean cracks, that until now, you never considered anyone would ever see—or want to see. For the finale you marinate yourself in deodorant, stink juice, body spray, and powder. Douse the back of your ears with the latest supple stench if you’re a girl and a slap of whore bait if you’re a guy, and leave the house shaking and sweating like a fat kid holding 99¢ at a $1.00 all you can eat buffet.

The meeting goes well or it doesn’t. It’s awkward at best and you deflect, finesse, and field an onslaught of ridiculous question after question. Where are you from, where did you go to school, what do you do for fun, what can you do for or too me, and what do you want?

You try to appear confident, charming, and knowledgeable. The whole time remembering the advice about picturing the other person naked and praying you got the advice right and that it was in fact meant for you. For a nanosecond you find your comfort zone and get the other person to laugh, pause, smile, or sigh. And during that very fleeting, minute instance in time, and in slow motion, you feel your sphincter finally relax from being clamped shut for two days. You’re on a roll, ready for the next big lunge into the abyss. The moment is yours. For about a second and a half. But what a ride.

If you’re lucky, it moves to the next stage. You meet the others who happen to be around and conveniently available to be met. See where you’ll sit, eat, shit. Shown the area where the magic happens and the few but fortunate frolic. If they really like you it happens right then.

You leave, feeling sullen, bemused and somewhat spent. Wondering how it went. What more you could have said and done. What you left out and what you left in. But overall, just relieved and glad that’s out of the way. Until the thought of who should call who and when that call should happen creeps in.

Back home, with more time on your hands then you need, you check your phone battery, click the Send/Receive button like it’s an orgasm dispenser, send yourself test e-mails, call your house phone with your cell phone and back again. It’s been two hours, you think, surely they want to see me again. You repeat this activity for two days with the same results and finally break down and question whether another attempt at communication on your part would indicate desperation, persistence, genuine interest, or sociopathic behavior.

Following several lengthy consultations with friends, family, psychologists, and people with significant religious and philosophical knowledge you draft an e-mail. A hands down winning choice over the phone for reasons of brevity, form, and eloquence. That and the paralyzing fear of sounding like a complete idiot has caused your asshole to slam shut again and if your phone call were actually answered by a real person you would become instantly un-constipated in the middle of the conversation.

You press Send and wait. And wait. And wait. Until one day, it occurs to you that you’re never going to hear back. You come to the very real disillusioning fact that they have moved on, aren’t interested, found someone else that better fits their need, lifestyle, wardrobe, or agenda and hired them. Shit. You’re overcome with depression from experiencing the kind of rejection that makes you doubt your own soul. Then it occurs to you that you’ll be starting the entire process again and get pissed off.

The nerve of them, you think. This is shitheadery at its best. No e-mail or phone call to say: You’re nice, but nice doesn’t work right now . If you had more experience… You’re not the right age. You chew like a cow. Bigger balls are a plus. Bigger boobs are a plus.

Okay, maybe a run down of your shortcomings wouldn’t be the esteem booster and motivator you’re looking for, but something less masochistic like: Hey thanks for the chat, discourse and intercourse. I appreciate you taking the time, and loved the reach-around, but it’s not looking good.

It is one thing for another person to completely blow you off after a date or a one night stand. Remorse, shame, shyness, or the simple inability to face someone or oneself are viable human reasons to not call someone and can be excused despite the hurt and humiliation you may feel. Human intimacy is brittle and tricky to negotiate. But when a company or person from that company thinks so little of the people who spend that amount of time and energy (and we all do) to make the effort and don’t have the decency, common sense, or integrity to let you know where you stand or even that you don’t have a leg to stand on it’s shitheadery.