Asking for Help

I am almost ready to give up on my apartment searching and sign on for a studio at 710 Peachtree, because it's the cheapest in a good area, and I might be able to get a good, 15th-story view, although bad is that it has a stale gas smell (from the stove) and the AC is worrying me, it's the same model as my Washington, DC conditioner, and each morning I was surprised to find that I had not dehydrated myself to death during the night. And Georgia heat is much suckier than Washington's.

Back to the smell. Gas stoves are better for cooking than the electric I have now, but worst off all is the kitchen...you could reach your arms out and touch all walls. It makes me want to cry.

At a classmate's suggestion, I sent an e-mail to an assistant for the department; it seems she's something of a hub for roommate-seekers. She told me to draft an e-mail and she'd forward it around to the students. Crap, it's really embarrassing having everyone see that I don't have enough friends to find housing. I tried to make my e-mail short - I tried to appear disinterested in the cool loner kind of way - I didn't want to a big deal out of it, but I crossed the line to even send it. I pushed "send" and ran away from the computer. I am not going to check my e-mail until tomorrow morning, maybe then the anxiety will have calmed down, but I hope seeing my begging pleas is not like watching a video tape of yourself when you were ten years younger making an arse of yourself (much in the way I will feel reading these entries in ten years).

Maybe someone will see my e-mail and also be looking for a roommate. We'll find a decent-quality, low rent place, and become best of friends. Life will be beautiful. Or they will see it, read about what a loser I am, and then everyone will know it.

At best I can only hope for pity: "Oh yes, did you see the e-mail? What a pity how far he's fallen..."

I do have a problem asking for help. Maybe this is a baby-step towards getting better about it. It's fairly safe; everyone that reads that e-mail will also be a similarly-broke graduate student. Also it's online, and not an instance where I had to get up, cracking-voice in tow, to open myself up to a large crowd. I get to do it online...sort of like I learned to talk to girls. Hmmm...that didn't prepare me too well...