That’s got to count for something.
11:50 AM
:P
* * *
11:53 AM
Speaking of drowning. I just agreed to go to this thing with my friend. I am going to be surrounded by…dudes. Dudes who will explain everything I know to me the entire time. I will have to smile and nod and not correct them. I do not know why I agreed to this.
* * *
11:54 AM
I suspect it is because you are a genuinely nice person.
11:57 AM
It’s cool. I can handle a little mild social interaction. Probably.
And look at me, hijacking your conversation. What went wrong on your end?
11:59 AM
I just heard back on the last of my grant proposals and I am so fucked.
12:01 PM
Oh no!
Did it not go well?
* * *
12:03 PM
Define “well.”
“You get maybe 20% of your proposals funded,” my old PI told me. “If you want funding for two projects, submit ten proposals.” Fuck me. I thought at five I was maybe undercutting it?
* * *
12:04 PM
Oh dear. Was five not enough? Is it too late to send out another round?
* * *
12:08 PM
Alas. That is not the problem I have. I can’t even complain about the problem I have to my friends, because I try not to be a complete dick. I am suffering from the crushing burden of success. I am five for five. Now how am I supposed to get all this research done?
* * *
12:09 PM
Poor Actual Physicist.
Having to do Actual Physics.
* * *
12:09 PM
I detect sarcasm.
12:10 PM
Poor baby. It’ll be okay. We can talk again in three years, when you have time.
* * *
12:10 PM
You’re mean.
12:10 PM
You’re busy.
* * *
JAY
* * *
A rap on my office door interrupts the conversation.
“Jay. Yo. Are you in there?”
I’m jolted away from the messages on my phone. I shake my head and look around my office. My papers are in order on my desk. It’s fifteen minutes past noon, and…holy shit, I’m starving. I had no idea.
Fuck. I didn’t realize how effectively Em had distracted me. I hadn’t even noticed how hungry I was. I stand up and open my office door.
Gabriel Lopez is standing in front of me. He’s gotten a haircut since last I saw him, probably proof that the job search is on in earnest. His dark eyes are furrowed in worry.
I blink at him in utter confusion.
“We were going to do lunch today, remember? I’ve been waiting for like ten minutes.”
“Shit.” I run my hand through my hair. “Dammit. I’m sorry. I was just in the middle of something. I forgot.”
He glances at my desk. There’s no evidence of Em in my office, just a few papers filled with my doodles of a quantum circuit.
“We were going to talk about your paper over lunch.” I read the abstract. “Let me grab it.”
He rolls his eyes. “You work too much. Fuck my paper. You obviously need a break.”
I blink. I’m meeting with my grad students in forty-five minutes. Plus, I’m finishing my final so that my graduate student instructor can take it and make sure that all the problems have actual solutions. I haven’t seen Gabe in weeks, not since we went over his job talk.
With his sister.
I frown. I don’t want to think about his sister.
Whatever. It’s not like I can drown faster.
“You’re right.” I stand up. “But can we be quick?”
We find tacos. I pick at mine for five minutes and try to think about something to talk about that isn’t his paper or his job talk. Politics? No, my blood pressure does not need that discussion. Either we’ll agree, and we’ll get mad together, or we’ll disagree and get mad at each other. Sports? I haven’t been following sports. As soon as I have a little more time…
“I can’t believe you’re engaged.” It’s the first thing that comes to mind.
He snorts. “You make it sound like it’s a death sentence. Not all of us are as fiercely committed to our bachelorhood as you are.”
I don’t think that’s a good description for me. I grimace. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to sound judgmental.”
“I’m a little touchy right now. My parents are giving me shit, too. They keep asking me how I know that Jutta isn’t just marrying me for US citizenship. I want to strangle them.”
I have no idea how to handle shit like that. I can give him advice on job talks and papers. Family advice is absolutely not my forte. That being said, I’m aware that this is the point in the conversation where I should say something supportive.
I settle on, “That’s bullshit.”
He shrugs.
“Is Maria giving you shit, too?”
“God, no,” Gabe says. “Maria and I have each other’s backs. She video chats with Jutta. Has since we got serious.”
My first thought—purely dismissive—is this: Of course Maria is the kind of person who video chats. It takes me a second to recognize this for what it is: stupid bullshit.
I’ve been trying to be better since Maria called me out. I apologized to Rachel. I told her I messed up. I didn’t make excuses. I didn’t tell her that I was judging Maria by a standard in my head, a standard that I let Clio set all those years ago, one that I’m still working on.
I’m trying to hold myself to a different standard now. What would Em think if I told her that I was annoyed that someone video chatted? She’d probably tell me to get over myself. My nose wrinkles. Yeah. So. I’ll get over myself.
Ga
be must see the face I’m making, because he shakes his head. “Are you allergic to the word serious? Getting married is not going to kill me, you know.”
“It wasn’t that.”
Gabe sighs. “Sorry. I’m not trying to be judgy. It’s okay that you don’t do serious.”
“It’s not that.”
Here’s the thing. Gabe and I met at Harvard four years ago. I was dating a postdoc who worked in the lab across from ours. We were together for five months.
We broke up because of academic jobs.
Specifically, I got one in Berkeley. I also was offered a job in Pittsburgh, where Dave had just landed a multiyear contract as lecturer. I didn’t even think about the decision, and he wanted me to think about it, and that ended…badly. Really badly.
I suspect that Gabe heard about that decision from both ends. Right now, though, is not the time for me to explain that I wasn’t going to rearrange my entire life for someone I’d been with for less than a year. The divergent job searches were not the problem. They were a symptom of the problem. Dave was into me a lot more than I was into him, and it turns out that’s not fun for anyone involved.
Gabe and I eat in awkward silence for a little while longer.
“So, serious question,” Gabe says. “Feel free to say no. I’m not sure where you are on this right now, but there’s this postdoc in bioinformatics I met—”
I do not need my friends to set me up with anyone. I don’t even let him finish the sentence. “Nope.”
“You don’t even want to meet her?”