Rejection Is So Awkward

There are things, I guess, that it makes sense to feel bad about and things that it doesn't make sense to feel bad about, and it's not surprising that the two would sometimes bleed into each other, but it's still always a little strange.

Tuesday I went to look at apartments, which is a long story and one that the odds are pretty good I've already told you about, on the phone, in exhaustive detail. Anyway I looked at a bunch, decided I didn't want the two bedroom one with a fireplace which was coming available because the wife of the couple who lived there had died and the husband was being moved out. It seemed like more apartment than I was ready for, although learning to build a fire is high on my list of planned-for-character-building.

Then I felt profoundly depressed and walked and felt beaten-down and went to look at more apartments and liked some all right and filled out applications in two different buildings. My mood was on the upswing and I got a little manic with the apartment managers. One told me that she had never seen a passport before, and I started telling an ultimately pointless story about how the government had initially rejected my application for my current passport because I had enclosed a check for too much money. It's kind of funny, and she chuckled, and even so I have no idea why I was telling her this. She was a trainee as apartment manager; the permanent manager had apparently received a large number of awards for her work from the ownership company, because the wall was covered with them, and before I figured out that this was a different person I was kind of staring at her trying to figure out why she had put all the plaques up, whether it was company policy or pride or whatever. I mean, I'd probably put a plaque up too, but it still made me think.

Anyway, both of the apartments I applied for wanted the phone number of my current apartment manager, and I hadn't brought it so I told them I'd call them the next day with it, and by the next day I had decided I really wanted the apartment in the other building so I called that building and gave them the number, and I meant to call her, but somehow didn't get around to it. Then she called me, and I just gave her the number, I didn't say that I didn't want that apartment. Then she called me back and told me that the number I had given her was disconnected, which is not that surprising for my current apartment management, and I told her I had gotten it off a form and worried vaguely that she didn't believe me, even though it was true, and then I was like, "well, actually, I'm taking another apartment so I guess you don't really need the number from me." And she was like, "no." And today I went up and put down my check on the other apartment and went and picked up the advance check that she had wanted for the deposit, and I guess somehow I felt bad for not wanting that apartment, even though I'm sure she could have cared less.