Like pregnancy, divorce and anal sex, unemployment is one of those things you can’t possibly understand until it happens to you. Whether you left your job voluntarily or not, you never know what to expect until you’re knee-deep in “I have absolutely nothing to do.” Every day feels like the last day of a too-long vacation—you’re eager to get back to something, anything.

Likewise, the people in your life may not know how to deal with your predicament. There’s a good reason for this: unemployed people don’t like to talk about being unemployed. It's hard enough to find someone to talk to between the wasteland hours of 8 [...]