One of the side-effects of OSNs (alright, namely Facebook) is that these broadcast news feeds one can emit from their profile will instigate en-friended individuals who have not heard from you in a while to be really curious… and encourage them to follow your paper trail. As I don’t have a lot to hide, I am pretty candid and easy to find.

And then, there are some people who forget that the internet lends to lurkers (thus, delurking week, which I completely missed). And some of these people have added me as a friend on this facebook, and have completely forgotten about me, because I’m a lurker.

With exposition out of the way, I should get into the heart of the matter which is reading the blogs and social network profiles of my friends who are still attending or who have recently been relinquished of scholarly commitments. And I realize this:

Holy crap. They don’t know what it’s like out here.

And in that respect, I hope they do okay. There’s an enormous divide between my friends who are professionals, my friends who temp, and my friends who are still in school – and what’s strange about this divide is that the students are oblivious to this fourth wall that exists between their lives on stage and, for lack of a better term, “real world.”

• Professionals: We talk about our industries and all the buzz of their respective recent events, and it makes us giddy. We talk about what’s on TV, and how it fits into the grand scheme of things. We have those TPS reports by Monday. We have this useless degree that was fun to get, but is totally irrelevant now. We talk about politics and religion over drinks in the sense that they apply to the people around us, not in a very theory based, metaphysical sense. We have to get to bed early to go to work, but we have trouble sleeping because of all there is to do. We network, network, network. We have running jokes in the office. We are addicted to caffeine. We are paying back loans. We are looking for places to live. We are adults, and we are shocked that this has already happened. We get it because we live it.
• Temps: We talk about TV, and what we think about it. We complain about crappy coffee. We are outsiders at the water cooler. We have a case of the Mondays. We have this degree that should do something for us, but we need more free time to figure that out. We would really like a drink at the local dive after work. We talk about interior decorating and if we can borrow this or that. We are pretty damn good at Guitar Hero. We’ve read some good books lately. We are biding our time until we figure out that we’ve become adults. We think we get it, but we need proof.
• Students: We have homework, homework, homework. We don’t know what rent is like. We don’t need to pay back student loans just yet. We have this paper due, and it’s killing us. We are working for this degree that will totally change everything and make the next steps easier. We like this one class because this book was great to read. We can drink you under the table. We are jetsetters, because we were told to travel while we were young. We have big dreams, and we really hope we get that internship. We are going to change the world. We are unique individuals with unique ideas who will only work in industries that share the same passion. We get it, too! Don’t we?
• [edit]My cousin out there in Sverige has also come up with an addition to this list, a hybrid of Student and Professional, which has a little of both positions’ traits thrown in a blender – the results do mean that both sides do lose some of their respective initial structural integrity, but it’s worth noting that these definitely exist. [/edit]

The professionals will tell the students, “Uh, you really don’t. No offense — I mean, you will get it, and you get the general idea, but not now because you’re not knee deep in it.”

And then I remember thinking like this during each of those three stages. And I remember the moment when I realized that student life is wholly another world than the working world. And this wasn’t even that long ago that I was this completely different person.

I wonder if there’s a way to communicate what it’s like out here to the students in there without them having the same preconceived notions that my friends and I had while we were students.

I guess not. There’s that fourth wall, and the stage, and those kids on stage won’t know what the world is like until curtain call. Let’s hope some of them will be greeted with flowers…

I have a huge crush on Cali Lewis. I could watch her all day.

That is all.

I’m not going to claim that I know exactly what’s running through the respective heads of the bloggers I’ve been reading lately, but it seems that people with regular journaling blogs like mine are able to be really candid about their romantic lives, and more open about their feelings during the lack thereof.

I wonder if this is a trope and something I should consider doing? Alright, let’s take a stab at it:

Back in college I did the whole archetypal whiny pining blog thing–that is, resentfully and opaquely blogging about the state of my emotions. Some of you are mindful of the fact that I did not use the word “emo” because if you bothered to do any research on that word, that terrible, derogatory word that has been beaten to the point of losing any meaning it might have had 8 years ago, you’d learn that is (or more accurately, was) a style of music, not an ethos. *Ahem* Anyway, those days are long gone and the girl responsible has actually managed to be reconstructed into a pretty cool friend to have. And dating is alright but not anything blogworthy.

Wait, let’s step back for a second. If I am more inclined to blog about a mouse more than a night with an ephemeral paramour, does that mean my priorities are skewed? Considering I haven’t been on a date in a LONG time I guess this shouldn’t be all that much of an issue of priorities as much as it is … just not having those stories available for blogging.

I just don’t know how to date, and as I’ve said before, nor do I care to participate in that perpetual job interview.

But wait, let’s step back further:

I am actually in a good position to be dating. I have a steady job and career path, transportation, great intentions, and a brain full of useless yet amusing facts that are relevant to at least some kind of pontification. I work at a bar on the weekends, engaging with a new social circle every Saturday night. I know fun things to do in LA that involve art galleries, live music, underground parties, coffee, independent film, and food.

Ok, so what is holding me back?

Well, for starters, I’m no Milo Vengagalaiamnliagagmningala, so I can rely neither on getting attention with looks nor an amazingly exotic and unpronounceable last name. At the bar, I don’t flirt with clientèle because I think that’s tacky. When I play a show, I don’t flirt with audience members because I think that’s equally if not more tacky. When I’m at a party, I don’t flirt because I’m more interested in listening to what stories people are using to entertain me than garnering and retaining vital contact information, such as phone numbers, email addresses, or first names. I also don’t date people I don’t know well enough to be able to call them a friend, but by that time, friendship is more appealing than pursuing a relationship so I totally miss the window of opportunity. Or rather, I always “miss the boat” that is the ship of relations – and in that event, flirting just seems weird.

Oh. So I don’t flirt. I guess that explains it.

So my question to you post-collegiate bloggers is, without the mixed nuts bowl that is college life, how do you meet people you date? Is there a way to do this without those sordid and profoundly lame singles bars?