It's funny how sometimes people can seem so old but then something happens, and you catch a glimpse inside them to see just how vulnerable they really can be. Like my housemate Zac. He's traveled the world, he has this life plan set in place, he's experimented and liberalized his mind, he has this air of confidence that could be somewhat arrogant if he wasn't such a chill guy. And yet tonight, he was so jumpy and nervous because he has a job interview tomorrow. A serious job too, an internship for his medical school stuff. That's understandable in and of itself - job interviews are nerve racking. But we all get through them. So I didn't think too much of it and said something about how interviews get easier the more of them you do. And then he asked me if I had any interview tips.

I didn't want to insult him, figuring he probably knew the standard interview prep drill, so I just relayed a bit of info I read/heard somewhere. Namely, that interviewers biggest complaint was that people came into the job knowing so little about the company or what they would be doing. So I told him to know a little bit about the organization and to have some good questions prepared to demonstrate some in-depth knowledge. Pretty standard fair, I thought. He said something about having asked most of those questions when he was on the phone with them - but something in his tone told me he could use some advice instead of me just backing off. So I said "Well, a pretty standard question for this type of job where they know it is a step on the way to something else for you, is to ask what skills you'll gain or experiences that you'll have that will be valuable to you in the future." He liked that one. Then he started talking again, expressing his concern about this interview and how much he wanted to nail it because he really wanted the job. Now I tend to interview pretty well, so I felt comfortable with this topic, and sensing his nervousness, figured I'd keep talking/asking questions of him.

As it turns out, he wasn't prepared at all for the interview tomorrow - he hadn't thought through answers to possible questions they might ask at all, or thought about what skills the job would require that he might have and how to explain that he had those skills, or about how to explain why he wanted the job (although he has sincere reasons beyond "I need a job".) Just throughout the whole conversation I was a little taken aback . . . he really has been this sauve confident guy up to know, unwittingly making me feel a bit sheltered and naive, simply because I haven't gone the places he has, or had the range of . . . "experimental" experiences he has. He's a good guy, so I never resented it or anything - I just was careful about what I said in order to try not to display my own innocence, as it were. So it was a little surprising tonight to talk to him and find this vulnerability in him. He graduated last month from college . . . I guess I just thought that by this age, with college and what not, he would have gotten some interview skills tips somewhere along the way.

Interestingly, when I had dinner the other night with him and his two friends who also went to Brown for undergrad and are starting Brown for medical school in the fall, I remember being struck then at how young they seemed in certain ways. They had lived on campus all the way through college, so now they were just starting to have the whole "living in your first apartment" experience. They talked about their sexual exploits in this real experienced way, but when taken as a whole with all the other things they were talking about, well, it was a bit like a twelve year old telling you in detail about his last drag car race. A little incongruent.

I don't know that it necessarily makes me feel good or bad, particularly. Mostly I think it just made me recognize that I do have this wealth of real-world experiences to draw on that apparently not everybody has. And I think actually that a lot of that real-world knowledge has solidified in the past year since coming out of school. It's hard to explain, but it's like right after graduation this whole real world seemed like a big mystery to me - how does it work and why the hell do I want to be in it?

But now . . . I don't have it all figured out, but I know I can do it. I've seen a little bit of how it works, and I'm comfortable with what I don't know yet because I think when I'm faced with something I'll know how to figure it out. And it's more than just all the facts they stuff you with in college. Somehow being out on your own, no safety net from the parents, and making it all work . . . you figure it out.

Gah. I can't explain it. And since most of my friends either still live with their parents or are going to school, you probably can't understand. So I give up. :-P