Chasing 20 minutes

I was talking with a friend a couple of weeks ago and I discovered how much internet dating and job hunting have in common. Having enjoyed(?) both endeavors, it all boils down to packaging oneself in such a way that someone reading your profile or resume will want to meet you to delve into the possibilities further. And, more likely than not, you will miss the secret words and be dismissed out of hand.

In an internet dating profile, you have one paragraph to interest the other person enough for them to even read further. Of course, if your photo doesn't fit their ideal of the 'perfect' person, then you won't even get them as far as the first paragraph in most cases. If you can get them to paragraph two, you have to pack as much information about yourself as possible into as few words as possible for them to even consider sending you a short message. Then, always mindful of the secret words that you don't know, you may write back and forth for a bit until one or the other actually suggests a cup of coffee. Then you are off for your nerve-wracking interview. It is very hard not to feel piles of rejection, even if you aren't particularly interested in the person.

I tried to remain fairly open minded in looking at profiles. Height, occupation, visuals were not show stoppers for me. I did eliminate people whose profiles indicated wildly different outlooks than mine, but I avoided only looking at the tall, dark and handsome sorts in favor of good and interesting men.

I was amazed at what sort of men cropped up and how quickly they made decisions without knowing anything about me. I'm no spring chicken, but I don't scare small children or animals either. And I clean up pretty good. One of the worst ones was a garbage collector who wanted to meet for dinner. As he walked up, I noticed he had immediately decided against spending any time getting to know me. This was confirmed when he said, "why don't we just go across the street and have coffee?" Rejection. And from a garbage man? That one hurt, even though I wasn't all that interested yet. I always figured it would take some time to get to know someone before you could be interested. Silly me. There were several who I rejected out of hand because either they began touching WAY too early, like the first 15 minutes, or their first topic of conversation was sex. Not that I'm not a fan of both things, but not with just anybody and certainly not less than 30 minutes into it.

Out of all the men I met through on-line dating, only one engaged me in conversation from the very beginning and truly wanted to get to know me as much as I wanted to get to know him. Needless to say, he is the one I am with for the long haul.

Job hunting is pretty much the same. You have one or two pages to put down all the right words on your resume so that you may be deemed worthy of an interview for a job. Of course, in all likelihood, the person who is looking at your resume is working in the human resources department, knows very little about the actual job and is scanning for 'secret words'. If the magical words aren't there, it doesn't matter how capable you are, the hiring manager will never see your resume and you won't be seriously considered for the job.

I've applied for jobs whose description did all but say "and your name must be Natalie"; I was so clearly qualified for the position. But I apparently either didn't use the right magic words or they had only posted the job because they had to, having already decided who they wanted to hire. And, in most cases these days, you never hear anything at all from the company. They don't even send out 'drop dead' letters any more.

In both dating and job hunting, your friends and family will try to lessen the rejection with platitudes. "The right job (or man) is just waiting for you." "Clearly it wasn't where you are supposed to be." "He was obviously the wrong one." "There are more fish in the sea." True, as far as they go, but not comforting. What if it (or he) isn't just waiting? What if there isn't any place where you are supposed to be? Sure are more fish in the sea, but clearly my angling skills are not up to snuff. And, after too, too many rejections, the temptation to give up is high.

It all boils down to trying to package yourself so that someone will find you worthy of 20 minutes of their time. And I wonder, how did we allow ourselves to reduced to anonymous words on either a screen or resume? And why are people willing to make snap judgments about just about everything based on so very little?

Half of a century in, it feels as though people have become more distant from each other. I don't know if that is truly the case or if it is a regional difference between where I grew up and where I have lived most of my adult life. As a kid, I knew all the neighbors for several blocks around, at least on a nodding basis. Now, I don't even know all the people in my 13 apartment building. It was even worse when I lived in California. There it took the 1989 earthquake to even get a conversation going with the folks across the hall.

It also seems as though things have sped up considerably over the years. And that fact alone has to meddle with interpersonal connections. I swear nothing makes me want to scream more than "time is money." As if money is the most important thing in the world. I've certainly met people for whom it is, but I don't think that's most of us. And if I am correct, why are most of us allowing that hurry up, abbreviated mind set to dominate how we must deal with things and people? It might be extremely difficult to go against the flow, but if enough of us tried might we not turn the tide? What might happen if we give the person more than the 20 minutes they are desperately chasing? What if we gave them 30? We'd learn more. We'd be showing more respect. And we might just slow everything down to a more human speed. Could be it would be worth it to try.

Acceptance

"Our entire life consists ultimately in accepting ourselves as we are." -- Jean Anouilh.

I've been mulling over this quote and the general notion of acceptance for a while now. It seems to me, absent certain reprehensible behaviors, that there is something very true here. There is also something very much counter to what is thought to be the case by society as a whole.

If we are taught anything about acceptance, it is generally directed at accepting other people's differences or foibles. In some cases, this is a very good thing because the opposite of acceptance is, frequently, judgment or even condemnation. When dealing with the opinions, actions or beliefs of others, we must just accept them for what they are and then either embrace them or walk away. We can never change them.

But when it comes to ourselves, we are generally taught just the opposite. From the time we are children, we are encouraged, taught, expected or threatened into an endless round of self-modification. This is done to make us fit into the expectations of a wider group, whether it be a family, a religion or a community. Some model of preferred behavior is held up as an ideal and we are instructed to try to attain it. Doomed from the get-go, we then, frequently, see only our failures and not ourselves. And we certainly never even consider accepting ourselves for what we are, both good and not so good. At best, this can leave us with a slight case of perpetual discomfort. At worst, true self-loathing can settle in, crippling any ability we might have for self-love.

Now, I don't for a minute think that absolutely everything is worthy of acceptance, but, as a retired master of the try-to-be-perfect guild, I think some healthy acceptance is sadly missing in many of us. And, in a funny kind of way, there is a bit of arrogance in thinking that we are capable of attaining the much vaunted perfection, never mind the silliness in setting it as a goal. In some ways, the always striving after whatever perfection we choose to aim at is a substitution for actually attaining it. It's as though wishing one had a particular virtue, and being seen to be striving after it, is the same as having that virtue.

We seem to put ourselves through this chronic lack of acceptance in every sphere of our lives. We see any failure to live up to an arbitrary standard as a personal failure. And frequently we equate these failures with moral failures. We aren't thin enough.......enough for whom? We don't earn enough......again enough for whom? We aren't smart enough, nice enough, something else enough. We tie ourselves up in knots to be enough, when in fact, most of us are good enough just as we are. We spend untold amounts of effort focusing on living up to some standard set by others and often never even consider what is acceptable for our own lives.

I know this has been true in my life, to the point that it took a concerted effort to even figure out what it might look like to have self-acceptance on any level. I used to beat myself up thoroughly over the past, over and over again, little realizing that there was absolutely no use in it. I even used to give myself a thorough mental thrashing over things that I thought that didn't live up to the elusive standards. And it was always a case of lather, rinse and repeat; there simply wasn't enough self-flogging to be done.

Fortunately, I've given a good deal of that stuff the boot. But I find myself wondering how much of my personal goal setting and life choices are still subconsciously being governed by the old lack of self-acceptance monster. I'm quite comfortable with the fact that I am not now nor ever will be perfect. I'm also thoroughly convinced that growth requires change and that change entails leaving behind previous convictions and behaviors without condemning the best effort of the past. I'm fairly confident that as I muddle along doing the best that I can, I will make some spectacular boo-boos, but I'm equally confident that they will not spring from a malicious spirit and I find that acceptable enough.