Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like a watering hole. People come by, take a drink and then leave. Several years ago, I met somebody who indulged in my hopefulness and affection, only to reject them when it stopped being convenient for him. I’m sure it had less to do with what I had to offer, and more to do with the fact that I was there. Even now, that story continues to permeate all my negative experiences. Every rejection, be it from a friend, an employer, or guy pivots on the moment I realized that  I was merely a resource — not a pursuit, not an investment, and certainly not a possession.

Is this just how it’s meant to be? Always the companion, never the girlfriend? Always the freelancer, never the employee?

Indeed, few narratives intersect as frequently as love and work. As a freelancer, I’m constantly wrestling with how clients take advantage of hard-working independents. Richard Morgan said it best: “Freelancing is basically just courtship, but the freelancer-editor relationship is nothing more than friends with benefits.” There’s a relationship there, but it’s not exactly committal. You’re denied health benefits, paid vacations, and the respect that comes with a formal title. You provide a service, they pay a fee, and you part ways. Sound familiar?

“Friends with benefits” works for some people, but generally, I favor commitment. You like me, I like you, let’s make it happen. You like my work, I like your cause, let’s make it happen. But in real life, people will often take what you have to offer without giving you what you really want. That, or they’ll procrastinate until they have no other choice but to commit. In the same way you don’t want to date someone for years and years, only for them to propose marriage to appease social expectations, you don’t want to permalance with someone for years and years in hope that they’ll make you a formal offer once you’ve paid your dues. Think of it in terms of love. You shouldn’t have to pay your dues to be somebody’s wife/girlfriend. If they really desire you, they’ll make a commitment before someone else can scoop you up. The same goes for jobs. Obviously, everybody has to start somewhere, but after some time has passed, you’ve got to know whether they consider you a family member or as hired help.

Maybe it’s my own fault for continuing to believe that somebody will come through. The disappointment is enough to make me question the value of living. At the very least, I begin doubting the value of forming connections, which are what bind me to life itself. Am I a bargain product? Get as much out of it while paying the minimum? Being an accidental freelancer or someone’s unofficial companion is like being a subletted  apartment. You tide the inhabitants over while they scout for the house of their dreams, all the while hoping that someone stick around. But it’s never going to happen as long as you’re a temporary residence by definition.

I know this isn’t the brightest path to wander, but nothing pulls me back like considering that for every one person who rejects me, there are at least five who’ve reached out to include me. Why does heartbreak matter so much when others love you in spite of it? Every time I think of the people I lost, I think of the friends who pray for me, laugh at my jokes, and who listen to my long and rambling stories. And since no one from the past has access to this part of me, that’s where I find my solace.

In the grand scheme of things, lost loves and opportunities don’t amount to much when you weren’t destined for them in the first place. If I were to disappear, they’d hardly notice my absence, let alone miss me. But I’m pretty sure I owe more to the people inhabiting that safe place in myself. I write this for them, and in doing so, hope to remember how to write for myself.

It’s usually the first thing people say when I tell them about my predicament. To be honest, I’ve entertained the idea. Not in the sense that I’ll actively seek out men who’d lovingly escort me to the Land of the Free, but that I wouldn’t immediately reject that option if it presented itself. I’ve waited so long, followed so many false leads, and spent so much time alone that I’m almost (ALMOST) inclined to believe that it’d be easier to find a willing man than a willing employer.

Let’s pretend that next month, I meet an eligible bachelor who’s conveniently an American in want of a wife. Even better, he’s from New York. Best of all, he’s a not elderly, good guy who’s super in love with me, so much that he’s willing to get married within the next year and to do all that paperwork. Would I go through with it? What if he were a perfectly good guy, and not a total weirdo, aside from the fact that he’s offering me a green card marriage? Would I do it? Would I forgo my youth, casual dating, the normal course of relationships, the excitement of actually falling in love with someone of my choice, to marry a guy for a green card so I can return to my beloved New York?

If only I were better at handling disappointment. I can just imagine the looks on people’s faces. “Wow, you sold out.” “Marriage is sacred!” “You should have left it in God’s hands.”

I know exactly what I’d say if people criticized my decision to get married out of convenience instead of love: For thousands of years, marriage was a business deal. You got married to preserve the family line, to honor your parents, to solidify a political contract, or (if you were a woman) to avoid being a social pariah and a burden to others. It was only in the Victorian Era that marriage-for-love started becoming the mainstream ideal. So basically, I’d be doing what people did for eons up until the past 130 years or so. Plus, who says I can’t fall in love with someone over time? It’s not like there were any serious contenders beforehand….

I can deflect other people’s opinions on romance, but I’m daunted by the prospect of diffusing my own disappointment. To marry someone for a piece of paper seems so desperate. I’d have officially admitted that my own talents and patience aren’t good enough on their own. For the rest of my life, I’d think about all those other guys I could have dated or married, the ones who were potentially a better match, or with whom I share real chemistry. I can’t. I CAN’T. I’d rather just not ever go back, and to seek/find my fortune elsewhere, than to put it in the hands of some guy with the right citizenship.

So the short answer is no, I wouldn’t marry someone for a green card. Well, maybe if he were a  Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Andrew Garfield hybrid, or perhaps a clone of either one….

During fourth grade, my homeroom teacher devised a version of “show and tell” where students were given a week to decorate the bulletin board with their personal mementos. On Monday morning, you’d pin up your things, and after recess, you’d use the board to introduce yourself to the class. One girl dedicated half of her board to Hanson. Another girl included a picture of the Olsen twins, and plenty of kids used baby photos or Beanie Babies, since that was the “in” thing in 1996.

Finally, my turn came along. The only thing I remember including on my bulletin board was this lavender-colored bunny that my aunt had given me a few months earlier. I wasn’t particularly close to this aunt, and that toy, while cute, was no Beanie Baby. It was more or less a bean-filled hackey sack with bunny ears sewn on. Heck, it didn’t even have a name. But for whatever reason, the bunny was my favorite toy, so I stuck it on the board.

A couple of days later, I entered the classroom to find a group of the class’s rowdiest boys gathered around my bulletin board, laughing and tossing my purple bunny around. The girls were standing in the back, watching and chatting amongst themselves. They boys didn’t stop when I came in, and they didn’t stop when I told them to. I asked them to give me back my bunny, but they just kept throwing it at each other. None of the girls helped me. I thought I would cry. Finally, one of the nicer boys felt bad and returned the bunny to me, but not before another kid joked that he’d wiped his saliva on it.

Things might have gone back to normal a couple of hours later (after all, bullying itself is just part of growing up), but I learned something that time has only reinforced. I learned that for the most part, people will take advantage of what’s important to you. That bunny was my favorite toy. I’m pretty sure that 10 year-olds are smart enough to know that whatever a kid brings in for show and tell is something of value. Why would you mess with a classmate’s prized possession unless you wanted to taunt her?

People aren’t out to get you. They don’t always mean to hurt you. It’s just that most people don’t know how to love you the same way you love yourself. You give them your heart, and they break it. You give them yourself, and they get bored. You share your friends, and they steal them. You tell them stories like this one, and they laugh and tell you to get over it.

I haven’t thought of that incident in a long time. After graduating to junior high, I forgot the purple bunny altogether. I only remembered what happened about a month ago when my mom brought her out while organizing our storage room. “Look what I found!” she said, tossing the old bunny (floppy as ever) onto my bed. “This was yours!”

I don’t think my mom knows that the beanbag bunny was my favorite toy. Like I said, it didn’t even have a name. But I do know that out of all the toys that we’ve donated or stored away, she dug that one out. Isn’t that just like life? The people who knew the bunny was important to me tossed it around, and the person who didn’t fully know its importance treasured it, even long after I’d stopped caring. That’s how you know someone loves you the way you love yourself, or at least loves you for who you are. They always remember the things that made you happy. With luck, there will always be someone like that around.

AUTHOR’S NOTE (11/08/2011): I wrote this post in November 2010. It’s a little depressing, but I’m posting it to show the contrast between it and a post I wrote almost exactly a year later. Crazy how things can change within a short span of time.

I’ve been trying to write a networking email for the past two days, but I can’t right now. It’s getting progressively harder to talk about myself in a positive way. I’ve started feeling as if my goals and dreams have no validity, as if whatever talents I’ve cultivated are of no value, and as if whatever services I can offer are commonplace or not needed. How do I convince others that I’m worth taking a chance on? Deep inside — when I’m alone, and just thinking or dreaming — I like myself, but I have a hard time expressing what I really want and why those things are worth going after. I don’t know anymore. Clearly, a lot of people don’t think I’m the best person for whatever they need — whether it’s as an employee, a friend, a mentor, or a girlfriend — and I hate that I’ve started doubting myself so much. I’ve never been one for bullshitting. When I interviewed for jobs or wrote networking emails and resumes in the past, I did so sincerely believing in what I had to sell. Now, I don’t really know. After getting so many “meh” responses, apologies, and non-replies, I’ve started taking it all personally, like the reason I’ve been disappointed so many times this year is that I don’t really deserve any better.

One of the biggest downsides to being a writer is that most of the time, you feel like a hack. Like you’re this self-absorbed person posturing as a vessel of good ideas. Any day now, people will figure out that you’re just a neurotic in need of an outlet.

Here’s what makes me feel like a fake writer: I’m not one of those people who can wake up early, throw open the window shades, sit down, and start writing non-stop. I don’t carry around a little Moleskine notebook filled with ideas and observations about people. I’m not especially witty. I’ve read maybe six books in the past year (how many are writers supposed to read? one a month?) I’ve never contributed to a literary journal. I don’t even read literary journals.

But if there’s one thing that really makes me feel like a fake, it’s that I actually hate the process of writing.

Don’t get me wrong. I will write if someone is making me do it, or if I’m angry, or if I’m feeling supremely inspired, but nobody’s mood is that extreme all the time. Maybe that’s why many famous writers developed substance abuse problems. It’s just so hard to sit your ass down and write something that other people will understand.

I feel bogged down staring at the blinking cursor and  thinking about how whatever I write won’t come out exactly like I wanted it to sound anyway. Thinking of synonyms is a pain in the ass. I won’t like, I log onto Thesaurus.com about ten times an hour when trying to get something done. I wish all of these sentences, leads, and paragraphs came naturally. I feel more comfortable writing once I’m about halfway through, and in the zone, but the warmup tempts me to quit before I’ve even started. I do everything I can to procrastinate: I make coffee, check Facebook, prepare snacks, all the while knowing that if I’d just started earlier, I would have been finished already.

I know how to get past writer’s block. Just write without paying attention to how crappy it all sounds. Go back and edit later. Doesn’t change anything. I still hate getting into the zone.

It’s like falling asleep when you’re an insomniac. Sleep is good. Sleeping for long hours, VERY GOOD. But trying to fall asleep is a pain.

I dread the day when I’m surrounded by writers who actually love writing. Just like how I hate being the only one at a sleepover/retreat/camping trip who cannot fall asleep. It’s like, look at all of you, snoring the night away, enjoying yourself without effort. SCREW YOU GUYS, I CAN SLEEP WELL TOO. I JUST CAN’T FALL ASLEEP. Maybe being surrounded by writers who write really easily, and who LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE the process will feel like being a pregnant woman who hates being pregnant. That will be me in the future. Pregnant and hating the morning sickness, weakened bladder, and swollen ankles, while my preggo friends are all, OMGGG I WISH I COULD BE PREGNANT FOREVER, I LOVE IT, HOW CAN YOU COMPLAIN, THIS IS THE BEAUTIFUL GIFT OF WOMANHOOD.

So yeah, I should probably get back to my freelance assignments for this week. But first, a snack…