Rejection/discomfort challenge week 16 (#39: Ask an acquaintance or stranger for life/career/art advice)

I’ve become quite wary in inviting strangers/acquaintances to hang out, especially when I meet them at a job or in a public space. And when I met someone who is a retired journalist for one of the biggest news corporations in the country, I knew I couldn’t pass up trying to get a connection. See, I graduated from journalism school two years ago from one of the top journalism schools in Canada. And in those two years, I’ve not found a full-time job in the field. Maybe the days of hiring journalists are over. Maybe content creation and freelance deals are our future. After all, literacy rates are going down, distrust in news is going up, and governments prefer to let news be blocked than have outlets be paid by social media companies from the ad revenue generated by looking at their content.

I digress. I guess what I’m mostly worried about here is my physical safety. I’ve met one old regular for coffee before; I felt overwhelmed, like she was inserting herself too much into my life. I don’t know if this will be similar. This journalist invited me to his art studio after coffee. I feel bad, but I think I’m going to tell him that I can’t today. I just don’t know how to phrase it as anything besides “I’m afraid to be in private with a man I’ve just met.” Sometimes the risks are worth the rewards, though. In the best case, I get great advice from him, and maybe a new mentor. And worse comes to worst, I guess I’ll just have another funny story to tell.