Dodged Bullet

Its easy to get confused en route to my house. The good people of
Highland Park named two streets with the same name; I live on Ave, but
Google Maps defaults to Lane. Its easy to end up on the wrong street,
on the wrong end of town.

A potential roommate - let's call him Brian - was going to check out
the apartment between 5 and 8 today. Just as I was leaving the house
to ride, Brian's wife (yes, wife; I wish I'd gotten more of that story
for you) called to ask if they could visit before 5. It caught me
off-guard, but I shortened my already-truncated ride to accommodate
them.

A few minutes after 5, I called Brian, or rather his wife, to
facilitate their visit. That is, to ask where they were already. Her
response was chilly, "we drove by earlier, it was all apartment
complexes, Brian doesn't want to live there."

"Ah," say I, "I think you were on the wrong street. Common mistake"
and proceed to explain the urban planning snafu of Highland Park. "So
if you'd like, I can still show you the place."

"Hang on," she says, and then I hear, somewhat muffled:

"Do you want to go see the apartment?"
"not if it's in Highland Park, I don't"

Then she says into the phone, "okay, we're not coming, goodbye"

Two weeks ago, a lab in New York City posted to a listserve I read,
soliciting applications for a post-doc position. I want one of those,
and would love to work in Manhattan, so I sent a reply in which j
asked for details about the lab and its reararch. No reply.

Yesterday, they reposted the position.

It is my instinct to be put off by these incidents. I don't take it
personally, but the world is supposed to work a certain way, and when
it doesn't, I get frustrated. Brian's casual ambivalence annoyed me,
almost as much as it would have had I waited until 8 instead of
calling. The NYC lab's unresponsiveness, which I admit may have been a
rare oversight, shook my faith in the system just a bit.

Just when I start to get worked up over poor etiquette, when I imagine
that I bear the cross of a crumbling, selfish society, I catch myself.
Had Brian shown up, he might've wound up my asshole roommate. Had I
sent that lab my CV, I might be stuck as their unhappy, isolated
post-doc. How lucky am I, that events unfolded so frustratingly!