Time Is On My Side

So one thing about being unemployed is that you have a lot of time on your hands. Loads of time. Tons of time. Oodles of freaking time.

Your employed friends will say that you are so lucky, that they wish they had time. Of course. You probably said the same thing when you were working 50/60 hours a week - I know that I did. And at first, once you get out of that unemployment depression, it's awesome. You can run errands that everyone else has to do on the weekend in the middle of the day in the middle of the week, when the shops are empty and the lines are short. You can read, you can watch TV, you can sleep late ... these things are all great. Amazing. Don't get me wrong, as I really enjoy these "perks" of unemployment as well.

But there is a lot of down time. You can only spend so many hours a day looking for a job on Craigslist, especially these days, when there are only a handful of postings a day. You can only spend so much time competing against your employed-killing-time-at-the-office friends on any of the varied Facebook word games. You can only watch reruns of 80s sitcoms/forensics shows/Law&Order for so many hours a day before your mind wanders.

For me, in this time of unemployment, I am also starting to date. I decided, as I had a lot of time on my hands these days, that it would be the perfect time to try something new, to do something new - internet dating. I put up a profile. I got some e-mails. I responded and I've made a couple of dates. I decided to do this type of dating because it's hard to meet people in New York. It's hard to meet new people when you have little reason to leave your neighborhood. And, what's it hurt? You meet a few people, you kiss a few frogs and maybe something good comes of it. But here's the thing, the evening before my first of the lined up internet dates, I met a guy. In an old-fashioned way, at a party, through a friend. And he was great. Sweet and smart and cute and we hung out for hours upon hours ...

And now is the waiting.
He gave me his number. I texted him, so he could have mine. And now is the waiting.

If I was still working, I would be too busy for it to take over too much of my mind - the when am I going to hear from him thought. Maybe I would hear my cell ring and would wonder if it was him, but I would be busy and my mind would be on a million other things. Today, not so much. I have it on good authority that I think too much and there are a lot of things my mind wonders to on these long, lazy unemployed days ... when will I get a job, how will I pay for the hotel room at my friend's wedding, whatever will I do when unemployment runs out and the economy is still in a "recession"? These things are total bummers to think about. But they are, somehow, a lot less stressful than wondering if this boy is going to text/call me back ...

Do I sound like a high school girl? Probably. But I have a lot of time on my hands and not a lot to think about right now ...

Is this a post more about dating than the pitfalls of being jobless? Maybe. But all I promise is to document what my life is like, living in Brooklyn and being unemployed. And, this is one of those things I'm experiencing.