Dear Anu. This is a reminder that your life will always be awkward. Signed God.

I really don’t know how it happens to me.  I thought being in graduate school, being a part of a social venture, basically being a part of really cool stuff, would somehow get me an exemption from awkward situations for a while.  I mean, even a week or two would be nice.

OH no.  Life has other plans.

Background:  So I’m part of this social venture, and we’re in the semi final round of a business plan competition. (I’m really stoked by the way).  Things are going well, but we need to find a Board of Directors.  Me and one of the other guys on the team took this class called Market Based Approaches to Poverty Alleviation last semester and he thought that we should ask the professor if he could be on our board.  I was still kind of in touch with him so I volunteered to do it.

So I send him this email in which I say that he inspired me, changed my life in ways he probably doesn’ t even know, is amazing and world changing etc etc…I get an email back saying that he is intrigued by the concept and would love to talk about being on the Board.  SCORE!  So we set up a meeting for today.
I call him today and we talk for a little bit, and then I tell him about the time commitment, and what we want from him.  He seemed a bit more formal than I remember but I was like…ehhh whatever.  Maybe he doesn’t remember that we talked a while ago.  So we’re talking and finally he agrees to do it!  And I was thinking…YES- new kid on the block has made a contribution to the team.

Before I hang up he asks how his name came up to be on the Board of Directors?  I told him about how we loved his class, and how we thought his work with SMS in India was incredibly relevant, and that he had a lot of experience in the field (in addition to the fact that he had changed my life as I indicated previously).  There was a long awkward pause, and right when I thought we had lost connection he told me that he had never taught a class before and he had no idea what I was talking about……

And I was like… ???!!!???!!! So I’m frantically trying to stall and trying to  figuring out who the hell I was talking to and what the hell happened.  Then he asks me if I even know who he is…  And I”m laughing, spewing out verbal garbage, trying to stall as long as possible because I’m thinking OF COURSE I DO NOT KNOW WHO YOU ARE OTHERWISE I WOULD HAVE KNOWN YOU WEREN”T MY PROFESSOR AND WE WOULDN’T BE HAVING THIS RIDICULOUSLY AWKWARD CONVERSATION!!!

Finally, I realize that I had typed in the wrong person in Gmail (their names were incredibly similar) and he was the Communications Director for a center on Campus.  NOT my professor.  Apparently I had emailed him this past summer asking him for help on a project.  (He was probably way confused as to how he changed my life…..)  So by the time I realize this, he asks if I was actually trying to contact him….and of course I had no really good answer because at the time my fingers couldn’t actually Google him fast enough to even see if he was remotely related to our project so all that happened was that I let out this awkward laugh/guffaw followed by a LONG awkward pause.  So then he just told me to    talk it over and let him know if we wanted him to do this.  I was like…ok.  I mean WHAT CAN YOU SAY TO THAT?  I’m sorry I got the wrong guy? I’m sorry I just talked to you for half an hour, promised you a Board position, and then realized you were the wrong person?? And frankly I STILL don’t know who you are?? Really??!! REALLY?!!

So THEN I tried to send an email to the REAL person I was trying to contact.  Except…well…I cut and paste the email I sent previously…and…the problem is that APPARENTLY in Gmail it highlights the thing you are searching for.  So I had pulled up an email by searching for the guys name, cut and paste it, and then hit send.  5 minutes later I get an email from my teammate asking why the guys name is highlighted in blue ALL THROUGHOUT THE EMAIL.  Fabulous.

And then the group decided that there was no way to keep the guy on our Board and that we (and by we I mean me) had to tell the guy that we rescinded our offer.

And then I got a parking ticket.

The end.

But it’s ok because at least I don’t need to watch comedies, or read funny stories to be entertained.  My life keeps me plenty entertained.  I think it helps remind me that…I can’t take life too seriously.

So then I took the rest of the day off and watched movies and ate ice cream.  And laughed a lot.  It was fabulous

How was your day?