(WARNING – The following has been dramatized severely for entertainment purposes. I’m fine, really. Nothing a daiquiri and a little shopping can’t fix.)

Some people confuse sadness with depression - some lucky people. People who have actually suffered true depression know that it is much more than that. It’s debilitating. You can’t cry. You can’t think of anywhere you’d like to be, or anyone you’d like to be with, or anything you’d like to be doing. Depending upon your body type, you either can’t eat at all (a physical manifestation of the emptiness inside of you) or you can’t stop eating (nothing can fill the emptiness) and you either sleep all the time, or you become an insomniac. Essentially, you can only function at activities not requiring frontal lobe participation.

I suppose I have no good reason to be depressed. In fact, I am ashamed of myself for entertaining these feelings. So many people are truly suffering in the world right now, and here I am drowning in my own pity puddle - for what? One job opportunity? But as Maslow theorized with his hierarchy of needs pyramid, because the shelter/food/air/water areas of my life are satisfied, I am just suffering at a very high level. Fantastic.

Why am I feeling so low (and hungry and tired?)? Because they didn’t call. Today was two weeks exactly from the interview. I called yesterday morning, heart pounding in my throat, to see what the progress was, and the kindly recruiter told me that they would be making their decisions today. I waited by the phone all day. My cell phone doesn’t get coverage at my apartment or in the school, so I hovered close to the interstate so I would be sure to get their call, if they called. I can only assume that no news is bad news. They don’t call you with a rejection – it just wouldn’t be very diplomatic.

And yet, I don’t think I would be quite this depressed if I knew for sure that they didn’t want me. In the tradition of females everywhere, I want closure. I have imagined a billion reasons as to why they haven’t called. Perhaps their meeting ran over and they won’t be calling people until Monday. Maybe they tried to call and it didn’t get through (unlikely, as I’ve checked my voicemail repeatedly just in case). Maybe the bookshelves in the conference room toppled over and the hiring partners are all trapped beneath a ton of Federal Registers and pocket parts, coughing from the dust, ‘Must.get.to.phone.to.call.candidates….*gasp*.’ The other associates, weakened by years of sitting on their tooshes at their computer desks, are unable to lift the heavy material with their dilapidated arms and carpal-tunnelled-wrists, and have been sitting around for hours debating the best course of action. Yeah, right. But still, I entertain these notions and am unable to move on because I still think there’s a chance.

If I were one of my friends counseling me, I would bring up a number of salient points: (1) I barely know this firm – How can I be sure it was The One?; (2) There are plenty of other firms out there! I’ll find one that’s right for me!; (3) Why would I want to work at a place that didn’t want me back? I deserve to be appreciated!; (4) The on-campus interviewer had to lobby to get me a space to come up for a call-back, and it might have been because he felt guilty about stressing me out. I should think of this as an all-expenses paid trip to a city I’d never been to before. I only gained from this experience; and so on.

But it is a fool who thinks that aligning one’s brain and heart is that simplistic.

If this were a guy I were getting over, I might pack his pictures up in a box and stuff them in the back of my closet, rent a sappy sad romantic movie to induce tears, and bulk up on my collection of Anti-Male literature. What for this? Tack the firm's brochures up on my bedroom wall and throw darts at them? Rent movies about unemployment? Way back in the day (and I mean way back like four whole years ago), I might have gone to a bar or a party to get attention from some stranger red-faced slobbery-drunk but obviously-intelligent-or-how-else-would-he-have-gotten-into-UVA guy. Is there any such place where a bunch of easy recruiters hang out? (“They’re crazy! I’d hire you in a heartbeat. Wanna come back to the office with me right now?”) No – this is totally different. This is not a place where you spend a lot of time recovering. This is where you get back out there immediately, and more importantly, (standing up, one fist in the air…) not let one somewhat seemingly significant setback lead you into sacrificing your integrity for any position or lowering your standards!!!