I suppose deep down I know it’s petty, immature, and self-obsessed to equate financial worth with self-worth, but it’s hard not to feel fairly low when you’re looking at things in a bills and food kind of way. Today’s the 18th of December. I still haven’t yet received any sort of job offer nor indication that I should expect one.

When I decided to make the move without first securing new employment I was initially timid that I might end up in this situation. Shortly before we left Virginia I was asked to interview as soon as I arrived in the city. This, I felt, was a good sign. Once I had gone through the interview and felt strongly about it, I let go of my lingering doubts. Surely, I’ll be hearing from this company soon.

“Surely,” I’ve been repeating to myself every weekday since then, “surely, I’ll hear something soon. Today, maybe.” When the business day is winding down, and the likelihood of a telephone call is diminishing I start to think that they might prefer to send something tangible by the post office. Then, once the mail carrier has come and gone I start thinking about the next day.

This is how I’ve managed to allow 36 days to pass since my first interview without realizing just how long it had been. I’ve never had to wait this long without at least knowing something. I’m fully aware that the holidays may be causing some delay, but this just feels like an awfully long time to wait.

I’ve interviewed elsewhere since then. It’s a bit farther away. Still inside of Chicago, but a pretty long trip by public transportation. Who knows? Maybe I’ll hear back from them first though.

In any case, the date of my first paycheck keeps slipping deeper into 2008. I just don’t know how we’re going to keep up with the bills and rent on one income. I really thought things would come together neatly so much faster.

Now, I just don’t know what I should have done differently, but I know that I’m feeling much more like a hindrance than an asset to this family.

It’s been a while since last we spoke. Or should I say, since last we “spoke.” It’s an inherently one-sided communication. I rant to a presumed audience that may or may not be there and you read it, taking from it what you will.

I’ve been more than a little gun shy about posting anything here in the past few weeks because I know that what I’m thinking about does not translate into thrilling reading. I’m a brooder. I know it, my friends know it, and now you know it (if you hadn’t picked up on that annoying personality characteristic already).

What can I say? I was a geek. Hell, I still am a geek. Geeks overanalyze. That’s what we do. All but bereft of normal social skills we doubt and critique every word that we say to another human being. We (by which I mean “I”) have no concept of flirting, or small talk, or appropriate answers to such mundane questions as “How’s it going?” “Well, actually. . . “ I’ll begin while a simple “Fine, thank you, how are you?” would have sufficed.

Not long ago a coworker told me that girls probably flirted with me all the time and I didn’t even notice. I said that was probably true. She then rattled off a laundry list of positive personal characteristics and other would-be date catchers to which, mouthful of tasteless sandwich purchased from the hospital cafeteria, could only reply “Hmmmfff.”

You know, for all my recent talk I really don’t spend overly that much time out of my entire life woefully ruing my inability to meet women. It comes in spurts – no double entendre intended. A few weeks at a time, after I meet someone to whom I’m particularly attracted to or manage to make a connection and lose it again, I’ll get obsessed. Yes, obsessed: I wanted to change that to a more positive term, but that would be a lie.

So, for those two, three, four weeks I start sizing everyone up. As if holding a phantom shopping list of hits and misses in appearance and personality I start checking boxes in my mind. Then the over-analyzation kicks in. “What did that gesture mean?” “Was that a real smile or a nervous ‘stop staring at me’ smile?”

And then, it’s over, and I’m back to my old routines again. Oh, occasionally I’ll see a girl and think “Gee, she’s a cutie!” I’ll think that, but feel no particular compulsion to speak to her or bother thinking any more about her. I just don’t go out looking for these sorts of things until, for whatever reason, I find myself in one. Then, when it fails, I just need that same feeling again. I can’t remember a time in which anything has become of that period of time that is, in the vernacular, called “rebound.” I might actually be too ashamed to act on it, still afraid of what the previous person might think of it.

Given the way I think about dating and relationships it’s difficult for me to accept that they can fall apart all at once. That’s why I’ve spent nigh three weeks convinced that things can be worked through and this story didn’t end like that. But, as I’m coming to finally realize and accept, it did.

Guess it’s time to go back to my GameCube.

In the span of no more than 5 to 7 minutes I completely ruined what could have been a beautiful relationship, if you’ll pardon the term. This might also be filed as a dire premonition against the proliferation of mobile phone technology. Want to know more? Of course you do, you voyeuristic bastards.

I’ve been in those giddy early stages of a budding romance for the past two weeks. This is that span of time when awkwardness and comfort in equal portions. Throw in a pinch of doubt and a heaping dash of alcohol and you’ve a recipe for disaster.

It was this mixture that led me to, after storming out a bar minutes after my would-be ladyfriend and her friend walked off without so much as a wave goodbye, furiously dialing her phone number to (in a rather cowardly manner) let her know I was upset at her actions.

Oh hell, that puts in much too mildly. I completely laid into her, with very little reason I might add. I’m the asshole here.

See, here’s how the whole thing went down. I had made what I thought were plans to meet up after I finished work. I hoped to have a voicemail message announcing a meeting place. I didn’t get one, and that was the first little pinprick of doubt.

Of course I knew, in my rational brain, that this didn’t necessarily mean that she didn’t want to see me, or was tired of me, or whatever else it might have possibly meant. Ahh, but who among us can claim to have the green blood of the Vulcans coursing through or veins?

I took a guess, said “I’ll try going here, and maybe I’ll find her, and maybe I won’t.” At this point, still pretty darned sane. A little irked over the missing invitation, but willing to accept that sometimes everyone needs some time alone. I spent a good bit of time feeling slightly disappointed but calm, as I didn’t see her at this particular establishment for the first half-hour or so of my time there.

Ahhh, but she was there. . . somewhere (I know not where she was hiding initially). I was thrilled that my detective skills were so keen, for a moment anyway. The problem was, she had already had quite a bit to drink that night, and barely even registered my presence. All speech had to be handled by her friend, whom I do not find that trustworthy and never really acts that pleasant towards me.

Now, I’m certainly not the sort of guy who cannot understand becoming very, very drunk. And I don’t fault her for that, but coupled with the missing phone call, my own intoxication, and the feeling that her friend’s distaste was her own led me to get unreasonably angry at my now-lost girlfriend.

I’m talking Hulk angry here. I mean, scary angry. I like to think I’m a pretty calm guy, most of the time. Something just snapped, I felt like she had blown me off for no good reason, and then I thought she needed to know about it.

Oh, but would I have left my mobile in the car. . . I would have stomped around for a bit, calmed down, and found my rational self again. But my phone was right there, and I could let my drunken rage be felt.

Fellas (and ladies too), take it from me. If you think someone needs to know just how angry you are try putting it in writing first. Don’t jump to your phone. I know it’s there, right there in your pocket, waiting to be put to use. Just don’t do it.

So. . .

I managed to speak with her this afternoon. I’m pretty sure I’m toast. It’s sad to think that something so worthwhile could be destroyed in one drunken moment, but there it is.

I’m a fucking moron.