Just in time for Valentine’s Day, I’ve discovered that I’m shitty at dating. Or, rather, I’m shitty at rejecting people. While I can take rejection like a champ, I’m not so good at dishing it out. Instead I rely on my previously tried-and-true method of avoiding, ignoring, and politely evading. Because this isn’t a ballroom dance, my attempts at the sweet and gentle let down are about as graceful as Charlie Sheen would be hosting the AVN Awards.

Let me be honest: I have the social skills of a troglodyte. Awkward stuttering, overuse of expletives, and intrusive questions are de rigor even in brief conversations, say, if we’re lucky enough to wind up in the same elevator, or you’re on line behind me at the deli. Fortunately for me, the Internet allows for plenty of people to think that  I’m normal, or even attractive! Whodathunk. I’ve tackled my wholly inauspicious attempts at online dating before, but this past week I figured out exactly why I am so blatantly and hilariously inept at it. Unfortunately, the reason is one that will thwart any attempts at human connection offline as well.

When putting oneself on the market for a romantic interest, it’s important to keep a few things in mind. In the old days, when beepers were considered technology and overalls were thought to be sexy, the process was pretty simple: locate a potential mate, approach them or have a willing friend maneuver an introduction, exchange numbers, call and set up a date, blowdry your hair, see if there’s chemistry, and then proceed to either make-out in your Miata to Extreme’s Pornograffitti or never call them again. It seemed pretty straightforward. Granted, I’m extracting all of this ’90s dating information out of what I remember from observing my babysitter and watching episodes of My So-Called Life. These days, shit gets complicated quick. Multiple texts are often exchanged before meeting, photographs are analyzed for evidence of Photoshop, Facebook searches and alternative lurking methods are employed, and the whole protocol makes one feel like Snookie trying to figure out Galilean invariance. Or maybe that’s just me.

For example, online dating allows you to immediately think you know things about a person, like whether or not they have a beard, like to wear a corset, are a douchebag, or paid attention in their third grade language arts class. An alcohol problem, addiction to bronzer, and reliance on emoticons to express opinions are also easily gleaned from these online singles corrals. What you won’t learn, however, is whether or not a person can take a hint.

What I lack in cup-size I make up for with pride. I am constantly on guard to see if the other person is losing interest, and I’ll be the first to admit that to catch me you have to chase. If you don’t call, you won’t hear from me. If you don’t send the first text, don’t expect your phone to chirp. The reason for this is simple: I am ill-equipped to reject people myself, so I’m always performing finely-tuned steganalysis for the ever-so-subtle passive-aggressive clues that I give off when I find a person about as appealing as that Food Network guy with the lesbian haircut. If you’re a chicken-shit with the inability to be direct about your lack of attraction to a lady, then I’m your equally yellow-bellied girl. It isn’t representative of my lack of confidence, it’s much to the contrary. If you send signals that you want in my pants, and the feeling is mutual, I’ll roll out the red carpet. (Or no carpet, depending on how you’re reading into this metaphor.) But if you’re on the fence about me, I’m not going to attempt to sway your opinion. It might be ripped from the pages of preteen dating manuals, but I’m not going to act like I care. If you were a university, I’d be too cool for school.

In my defense I’ll tell you this, I am very, very good at discerning when a person would rather not dish out direct rejection. This makes me feel, perhaps with a Costco-sized amount of naivety, like I should be damn good at transmitting this message as well. Have I not texted you after the first coffee date? Perhaps you shouldn’t continue to send me pictures of your cat. Are you firing off emails about what great shows we can see when I’ve already politely declined going out with you three times? I’m either not attracted to you or I’m waiting for the Nirvana reunion tour. Left me two voicemails and gotten no response? I’m either busy washing my hair before masturbating, or I’m trying to let you down easy.

Apparently this method is anything but easy.

Guys, listen: women, for all of our nuance and complexity when in a relationship, are about as subtle as ESPN’s cut-to-break guitar riffs when we’re not interested. Most of us don’t want to have to say, “Sorry, your pot-belly/questionable hygiene habit/lack of employment/contentment with living in your mother’s basement is kind of a turn off for me. I really think it’s best if we never speak again and, actually, if you could get my entire existence wiped from your memory like that Michel Gondry movie, that would be stellar. Thank you for the latte.” Most of us – from my understanding, both being a woman and having slept with my fair share of them – don’t like being jerks. And because society tells us that brutal honesty is an unladylike trait unless you’re the “villain” on a reality show, we often opt for the path of least bitchistance.

I am mortified by repeated attempts at communication when, in my head, I’ve already made my disinterest clear. According to Marie Claire, which is one of the few women’s magazines that doesn’t profess that unexpectedly anally penetrating a guy is a “hot sex tip,” brushing someone off after the first date is tough because of the implications. “Rejecting someone’s request for a second date sends the message that the first date was a failed tryout,” they say. And certainly some of the first dates I’ve had have felt like Stephen Hawking auditioning for the Miami Heat. I thought it was obvious, but obviously not. The phone continues to sound like a panicking cockatoo, and I look at the texts with trepidation, knowing that I won’t respond. Or, if I do, it’ll be a simple, polite dismissal that’s like a burlesque show of my lack of enthusiasm. I feel incredibly bad, it’s like a snapmare to the stomach combined with embarrassment. I know, I know: men need to be explicitly told, in no uncertain terms, that they cannot stick their parts into a warm, wet place. If they aren’t given a military style command of “NO DICE, MOTHERFUCKER” they’ll continue to try. So if I really get myself so sick from giving the slip, I should just be direct, right? Great advice. But how? As I dodged another call, I brainstormed a short list of optional rejection techniques:

• Stage your own death. Post obituary in a free morning paper, even if it doesn’t have an obituary section.
• Stalk the person you want to reject. Find out if they have any attractive friends. Sleep with them.
• Become vocal and enthusiastic about getting married one day. Watch reality shows like Bridezillas and Bridalplasty if you need inspiration for how to be absolutely revolting to all of human kind.
• Cultivate halitosis. (This will require going on another date. Though it might seem counter-intuitive to the ultimate goal, I suggest anything with tight spaces or close quarters, like initiating a game of Twister, going for an MRI, or renting a PT Cruiser.)
• Go gay. Conservative Christians and Republicans say it’s a choice, so, really, what are you waiting for?
• Respond that you’re currently out with your ex who is a NYPD detective, but that you’ll call them back later. Also let it slip that your ex says they should clean out whatever is in “that drawer” before morning.
• Fabricate children. Bonus points for making several the same age and forgetting their names.
• Respond with something like, “Sure! I’ll get back to you once the sores clear up.”

Or you could always just post something snotty about dating on the Internet. There’s nothing passive-aggressive about that at all.

If you have any techniques of your own, or a rejection story to share, feel free to leave it in the comments section. Who knows? Maybe I’ll use it next time, if karma ever sees it fit to toss me another date.

Over the years, I’ve collected rejection letters the way that most people collect books or underpants. I’ve learned that they’re part of the process, they’re pretty much inevitable, and, most of all, no matter how shitty my hair looks on any given day, they’re not personal. Also, it doesn’t matter how much good karma you try to generate by tossing pennies into the Salvation Army’s cup, or by smiling at post-office employees, the business of being rejected has nothing to do with how good of a person you are. The trick is to convince yourself that it has nothing to do with how good of a writer you are either.

My first rejection letter came on an afternoon in my preteen years. Coming home from a soccer game, which we had lost, I discovered a piece of mail on my desk, next to my goldfish bowl. My goldfish, of the five-cent carnival variety, was floating belly-up in the vase that served as his bowl. My fledgling poetry career was doing the same in the envelope. I lay down on my bed and took a nap.

Over the years I became desensitized, nay, even brazen about it. Stumbling home drunk at four-thirty in the morning, I’d struggle with my mailbox key and discover the latest gently-worded “fuck you” in the tiny compartment. I treated it no differently than the bevy of men and women I’d sauntered up to over the course of the evening, leaving with little more than napkin scrawl and a potential future outbreak of herpes simplex. Rejection is part of life. I stopped caring and started treating it as less of an occupational hazard, more as simply part of the job description. So long as I was still submitting I was still a writer. I became a hope junkie.

A few weeks ago I started work on a satirical essay that was pretty close to my little robot heart. It made light of caretaking and parents, it poked fun at some of the less-than-pleasant aspects of helping a sick family member at home. Of course, I drew on some of my personal experience thus far, as I’m lending a hand to my mom and playing the role of Falcor in our Neverending Chemo Story. I edited the shit out of the piece when I was done with draft one, and made sure that it struck the right balance between wholly acerbic and sorta poignant. I mulled over it, took my time, gave it breathing room, and…I liked it. That’s rare.

I thought of where to send it, after all, it’s not like there’s a gigantic market for gallows humor, unless I’m completely mistaken. Then I thought of McSweeney’s. Probably my favorite website, chock full of chuckle-worthy good writing and brainy wordplay, of course they’d accept a quirky little piece about homecare! They are the website that’s filled with genre-transcending prose and lists,  a sanctuary for the some of the most daring of swashbuckling pens. Maybe they had a slot open for a hopeful nobody.

As glib as I’m being, it wasn’t as if I simply expected to be accepted. I truly believe that I suck, just as much as the next fledgling creative, and certainly I acknowledge that I suck much more than those who have been lucky enough to find themselves in McSweeney’s. I’ve had more than one list play the role of skeet for their editor’s marksmanship. I hadn’t cared in the past. But this piece was different. More polished, closer to the marrow, locked within the birdcage beneath my nonexistent breasts. I edited it, spell checked it twice, said a small agnostic prayer, and sent it to their site editor, wishing it godspeed.

The days that followed were filled with what keeps me doing something so stupid as submitting to publications. I became buoyant with growing expectation, dancing along on my Converse, the Gene Kelly of my own rags-to-riches story of ambition, perseverance, and a flash fiction piece about cancer. My dreams were filled with literary success, launched by my little lampoonery. I’d make a name for myself. I’d be paid to write essays and articles. I’d make a living. I’d have Simon wearing a loincloth, fanning me with a palm frond, and feeding me green grapes by hand. (And vegan soft-serve by mouth.) Life was gonna look up. For the first time in my life as a writer, I was convinced I’d be embraced by the warm, snuggley arms of an editor on his ivory throne. Welcome, the letter would say, to where you’ve always wanted to be. Cherubs would sing and play Röysksopp on little harps. Chinchilas would do the hula.  Maynard James Keenan would write me fan mail. I would be in McSweeney’s. I would.

After my mom took her first monster dose of Xeloda, I ran out to buy her the B-6 vitamins she’d forgotten to take to prevent neuropathy. It was there, in the pharmacy parking lot, under a heavy, gray sky that I checked my email on my dented, pink Sidekick-ID.

“Hi, Ainsley. This one is not without its moments, but overall the conceit is just a little too dark to win me over. Appreciate the look, though. Hope you’ll keep trying.”

The sort of devastation one feels when dealing with acute failure is palpable. I’m not talking about the closing pitcher who blows an occasional game, or the still-beautiful pop singer whose third album doesn’t break the top ten on the charts. I’m specifically addressing the sort of failure that one feels when one believes, in no uncertain terms, that they will achieve great success. I hadn’t gotten all flushed and dewy eyed when Brown University bitch slapped my dreams of grad school in my early twenties, I didn’t let out a wail when Poetry Magazine sent me a very off-handed “thanks-but-no-thanks” in the tone of Sarah Palin. Like I’ve said, rejection is part of the game, if you’re truly a writer it should come as natural to you as the alphabet. I have no idea why the four lines from McSweeney’s caught me like a gerbil swept up the nozzle of a vacuum, but they did. My self-esteem, what there was of it anyway, has yet to recover, which strikes me as peculiar.

Don’t be mistaken, this isn’t a woe-is-me thing. Sure, I’m destitute, have no new clients, and spend every errant wish, from stars to birthday candles to 11:11 on the car dashboard, on the simple hope of making a living as a writer. Absolutely, my current situation, living with my mother as she battles terminal cancer while my partner stretches out in bachelor bliss on the couch in what once was our house in Oklahoma, it sucks. No bones about it. But the hard rejections, the ones that are more of a broken jaw than a flavorless jawbreaker, those are just another key in the QWERTY of life. Rejection is like entry fees, each varies in the amount, and there are few you can avoid. You want to know what would be a shame? To not resubmit the same piece — maybe edited slightly to make it less dark, maybe not — to another publication or contest. To give up and say, “That’s it, done, fuck it. I want to organize shelves in Whole Foods for a living.” (All right, I admit it, I do. But I can write, too.) Even though this particular punch in the gut was a shocker, what can you do? I’m writing about it. And I’ll keep writing, for myself and for an audience I have yet to find. And maybe that makes me an impoverished fool, but it also makes me a writer. And a Leo! And maybe also bisexual, considering I do this hoping you all will want to take me out to dinner.




As a final note, I share with you some morsels on the misgivings of this profession, that I discovered as I tried to drown my sorrows in the comforting waters of the Internet:

The editor of the San Francisco Examiner rejected a short story by Rudyard Kipling by sending him this little love note, “I’m sorry Mr Kipling, but you don’t know how to use the English language.”

If you’re looking for more consolation, there’s always the Rejection Collection and Literary Rejections On Display. They’re nice little reminders that we’re all in this together. Don’t let the bastards grind you down!

Drop me a line, AinsleyDrew at gmail dot calm. And thank you to everyone who donates! Means a ton, makes me do a little dance.

Hire us to word you.

What I’ve Learned

(If this guy and that guy can have somewhat condescending autobiographies written, I can compile a list that indicates expertise where perhaps there is none.)

1. Have no pride

I used to be one of those girls who parked her car next to her boss’ in the lot. I held my head up high as I changed the filter of the company coffee maker, I answered phones with dignity. I knew that I was good at what I did, and I fulfilled my job description expertly.

Freelance doesn’t come with the kind of self-congratulatory recognition of a job well done. You’ll learn quickly that you will take any job (“Write advertising about a reusable tampon made of cigarette butts? Sure! 50% upfront, we’ll have the entire project to you by Friday.”) You will also learn how deep your well of patience is. You will perfect the art of smiling when you’re told that the job you wasted your entire weekend on has been pared down to two sentences that are grammatically incorrect, or you’ll write countless, fruitless taglines for an establishment that you would never frequent. Clients will yell at you and you will take it; and even if your general nature is to spout out riot grrl lyrics, you’ll learn to be called “dear,” “hon,” or “cute” by a potential client. Because patience equals money. And Kathleen Hanna never paid your T-Mobile bill.

Additionally, you’re going to have to ask for help. Accept that fact. Even if it’s in the form of an email to a writer you respect for guidance on creating the perfect metaphor, or putting a donation button on your blog (ahem), or simply handing out your business card at every opportunity, remember that the squeaky wheel gets the most oil. Especially if it’s a wheel attached to a Ferrari, not a fixed gear.

2. Don’t think too far ahead

Sometimes the unpredictable happens. For example, last week our old office was broken into and Simon’s computer, router, Grundig radio, and space pen were stolen. This was not something we had planned on dealing with, but you take the rough with the smooth.

It’s easy to want to compartmentalize your experiences and look to the future, especially if you’re a product of the higher education system. Grade school leads to high school leads to college leads to a master’s degree or a job…leads to marriage, house, kids, retirement. Let’s face it, freelancing barely pays this month’s bills. I can’t conceive of a day when I will be able to actually save money to purchase the stamps for the envelope that would mail a mortgage payment, let alone buy a house. Or a car. Or a pair of new shoes.

If you commit to following your passion, chances are you’ll have to accept that you don’t know what’s around that proverbial bend. It’s like The Lady, Or The Tiger?, only it’s The New Client, or Sell Your Stuff? Hopefully karma will repay us for that theft and the next unpredictable turn of events will be an email offering us a new gig.

Besides, you’re fucking batshit if you think you’ll ever be able to retire. And I don’t even know what you do for a living.

3. Have side projects

I know this probably seems a little counterintuitive, I mean, if you’re starving how can you focus on anything else? But if you don’t want to go apecrap bananas and wind up so stressed that you start having hot flashes and diarrhea, get a hobby. Seriously. One of us is a DJ on the side, the other has a blog and a crossword habit. It’s essential for us to write our own stuff, may it be stories, poetry, articles, blogs, grocery lists. Being stuck in “work mode,” even if it’s what you love to do, can only suck the passion right out of the party. Just like how in a functioning relationship you need time away from your partner, as a freelancer you sometimes need to stop swimming laps in the professional pool in order to soak in the creative hot tub.

Also, I cannot understate the importance of regular showers, wearing an actual outfit while working, and making sure you have readily available caffeine.

4. Be grateful

The donations from this blog, the clients who have solicited our work after reading, anybody who has ever sent an email saying simply that they enjoyed this professional whingeing diary…thank you. (And, yes, I mean whingeing.)

There isn’t a day that has gone by since the beginning of going freelance that I haven’t felt sincere gratitude towards strangers. It’s a symbiotic relationship, really. If we get work, we get to eat; if I get letters and donations as a result of this blog, I can’t flake on it and just say, “Oh, fuck it, nobody is reading it anyway.” The equation for persistence isn’t like that “success” piechart of 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration. It’s 50% feeling guilty combined with an immitigable need to make people like me.

Any morning that I wake up and don’t wince because I have eight hours of something I don’t care about in front of me is a good one. It’s people who read this that make that possible. I know it’s a hippie-dippy thing to say. I know it sounds like it should be the voiceover for a public television ad. But know that if you read this, you are directly making somebody’s life better. (Mine. And, indirectly, Simon’s.) Double that happiness if you give feedback.

5. The Internet is every fuck up’s PR firm

I know my friend Lisa. She lives in Chicago, likes to read David Foster Wallace, has a dog named Reeses, and hates pad thai. From her photograph I can tell that she has brown hair. I could not, however, pick her out of a lineup, or notice her on a crowded bus. She, on the other hand, thinks I look like a rotary telephone. Because that’s my icon.

The internet is a bizarre place. You “meet” a lot of people on it, and by following tiny, self-administered snippets you can feel as though you’re let into a person’s life. If you’re lucky, you meet some good ones. But a lot of the time, however, you wind up with what I can only describe as the kinds of people with the social skills that got them banned from the Renaissance Faire due to bad behavior.

In order to write about yourself you probably have some hope of getting attention. Understand that part of creating an identity on the web — no matter how close to the truth it is — requires some level of persona management. People will think that they know you from what you‘ve written, it is likely that they do not. People may feel that they have the jurisdiction to pass judgment on you, and they do, because you are sharing something, may it be as trivial as the kind of cereal you had for breakfast or the fact that you accidentally got elbowed in the face during sex.

That’s not to say that anyone has the right to aggressively berate you or act seedy and weird. Playground rules still apply: play nice. But recognize that by using the internet to voice your opinion, or to do a burlesque dance of verbiage for work, especially as a freelance writer, you’re putting yourself at risk of being scrutinized. And, of course, there’s that issue of oversharing.

Just take note, dear reader. Readers, plural, if both of you are reading, Mom and Dad. Keep your head up, keep your distance, but most important of all, keep trying.

Ainsley Drew at gmail

Brevity equals wit?

Cash money.

(Thank you.)

The line “It’s not you, it’s me,” might be the closest a human being can get to punching someone in the diaphragm without lifting a finger.

At nineteen I fell in love with a girl who liked her paramours to be super-feminine, so I grew my hair, went shopping for lipsticks in colors like Merlot Sunset and Peachy Queen, and made sure to invest in a pair of heels that inevitably led to two sprained ankles and a particularly ungraceful swan-dive down the steps of the Second Avenue F train station. She left me for a high-school senior named Kristen who wore glitter eye-shadow and whose graduation gift from her parents was a Honda Civic with a pink paint job. With my brand of forced girlishness that was far more gaudy than gamine, it was no wonder that my ex dumped me like a pile of awkward rocks.

Like most people, I’ve been in situations or relationships where I struggled, and inevitably failed, to fit into a role that just simply wasn’t me. These include high-school cheerleader, mentally stable girlfriend, and Phish fan. I cringe most at the last one.

I’ve lived that life of wanting to fit in. It was called high-school. It led to a pitifully small social circle, a fairly high SAT score, and a frightening tolerance for alcohol by my sophomore year of college. I thought the days of rejection and nights of The Cure and Kleenex had gone the way of the rotary phone. Needless to say, when I received what could only be described as a break-up email from a client today, my heart kind of broke a little.

Now, before any of you start to chortle, allow me to illuminate you to the fact that my period is over and I didn’t cry. Okay? This was a rational response. Really.

Just like I knew when Kristen’s number started showing up in my ex’s beeper, and how her car would smell mysteriously of Love’s Baby Soft, I could see how this was going to play out. The client had hired me on for two projects, website text and press releases for their new location. I had researched their business extensively, sat down for a brief meeting with the owner, trolled the Internet for competitors, and churned out what I had thought was inventive and engaging prose. After the first two sets of revisions, complete with a terse note addressed to me and little explanation as to how to improve upon it further, I knew the client wasn’t happy. Despite the fact that I had been given little guidance on the project, I had thought I was fully capable of gleaning at least a remote idea of what they wanted for their homepage text. After the third set of revisions — and after following their notes with the exactitude of a surgeon, even repeating a word several times in one paragraph because that was how they wanted it — I composed an email asking for more detailed guidelines as well as additional deadlines for the project as a whole. A few days passed. I knew what was coming in the same way that terriers can smell storms.

The email I opened this morning was surprisingly honest and gentle, expressing their lack of clarity on where to go on the project as a whole, as though my text forced them into the role of Goldilocks and made them realize that they really didn’t know what sort of a feel they wanted for the website after all. There were plenty of backhanded compliments that I tried not to wince at (I was called “creative” more than once in the same way one refers to the kindergartener who eats paste and says they’re a helicopter.) I was promised more information as to whether or not I would be kept on for the remainder of the project, but it had the same feel as being told “let’s just be friends.”

I was rejected.

I felt like the client had broken up with me even though I got a decent piece of text for my portfolio out of it and the knowledge that sometimes, as the email said, you’re just not the right fit. That’s not a criticism of you as a writer or an employee. After all, I turned in the work on time and listened carefully to what I was told with regard to how to make improvements. It wasn’t anything personal. At least they had the consideration to write to me and tell me that they were trying to solve the conundrum of where to go with regard to the site in its entirety. It wasn’t me. It was them.

But I couldn’t help sulking around and wondering what I could have done differently.

Being able to adapt is a commendable trait. My business partner is of the mentality that, as professional writers, we should be capable of writing anything, our skills should make us little character chameleons, slipping from one medium to the next. I, however, respectfully disagree. Ouch. He just threw a shoe at me.

I believe that knowing your strengths is what makes you capable of greatness. No one ever told Superman to dance, Basquiat to write a sushi-making manual, or Pavarotti to knit a sweater. I suppose a more appropriate analogy is that no one told Pavarotti to beat-box or perform slam poetry, although both require a microphone and could be considered audio-arts. He knew he was an opera singer, a tenor, and didn’t attempt to stray too far outside of what he did best. Even if he had, he would always be known as a tenor specifically. Perhaps it would have been different if he had just said, “Oh, you know, I sing all types of stuff,” but it’s likely that then he wouldn’t have become the best at what he could do. Flexibility and compliance are certainly great characteristics to have, but I believe that honing your skills down until you are the ultimate foccacia maker, the unbeatable left-handed ping-pong player, the most knowledgeable stingray expert, whatever, is the most effective way of standing out, or, in my case, of avoiding the path of just another mediocre freelance writer.

My business partner seethes when I tell him that his style is identifiable, that the way he puts words together is unique and a sort of trademark that represents his body of work as a whole. He thinks this shows a rigidity and limitation. I think it instead allows him to be a commodity of sorts. If a potential client reads his samples they get a clear picture of how he writes, his style and flair, and they can easily determine whether or not it jives with their assignment. My hodgepodge collection that ranges from dry technical writing to over-the-top artist bios and sardonic articles only really illuminates the fact that I move my fingers fast and I’m willing to try anything once. Both can be said of my romantic life as well.

Although I’m not sure it was the correct way to handle the situation, I wrote the client back. I said that I hoped they would continue to have me write for them and that we would likely benefit from another, more intensive meeting to discuss specifics that would avoid another lengthy, drawn-out revision process. I wished them well and said I hoped to hear back soon. I haven’t heard back. Until I do I suppose I’ll just read the new issue of Cosmo, write in my journal, and wait by the phone.

AinsleyDrew at gmail

Hi-ho, hi-ho

Drop down and give me one hundred and forty