6 Reasons Why Being Unemployed Is Like Being Don Draper

1) You try your best to uphold a confident demeanor amid your daily routine of activities, no matter what.

For Don: Remaining smooth and confident during meetings, even when his subordinates have botched the project.

For you: Describing yourself as “self-assured” in the cover letter that you have edited approximately 28 times during today’s self-deprecating analysis of what you have to offer a company.

2) You rely on any number of distractions to keep you from realizing how empty your life actually is.

For Don: Copious affairs and swanky possessions.

For you: Watching so much Netflix and Hulu that you will now watch entire seasons of a show you do not even like.

3) You continuously have vibrant flashbacks of your past that come seemingly out of nowhere to haunt you.

For Don: his childhood in a brothel and the relationship between him and his brother, father, or mother.

For you: the entire Jack’s pizza you ate last night in under two minutes, that summer you didn’t have an internship, and that crap job you interviewed for that you did not even want that turned you down.

4) You find drinking helps. Lots and lots of drinking.

For Don: whiskey.

For you: Cheap whiskey.

5) You are living a lie, clinging desperately to who you want to be and not really who you are.

For Don: Really Dick Whitman who left his old life after the Korean War by stealing the identity of Don Draper.

For you: Living under the exciting guise of “funemployement” to your employed friends-“Look at my Instagram! I have the time to make delicious French toast in the middle of a Tuesday! Are you jealous? The secret ingredient is one-fourth cup of my own tears! Right in the batter!”

6) You find that sleeping around has become part of who you are, just so you can deal.

For Don: A woman from the bar, the wife of a neighbor, a sultry woman walking down the street.

For You: The bed, the couch, the bathtub, the floor, the coffee shop, your cat’s bed.