Last night I had an embarrassing dream — embarrassing as in “I felt embarrassed within the dream,” not “I had a dream about somebody in particular, and I would be embarrassed to tell him or her about it.” No, I didn’t kiss a co-worker or my strangely attractive, middle-aged neighbor. I have enough of those dreams. This was something entirely different.

So in the dream, I was with my friends — actually, they weren’t even my friends — they were my girlfriend’s friends. I was with my girlfriend and her friends, and we had to get to this important place; I don’t remember where. They put me in charge of planning how to get there, so I decided we would take the bus.

We waited at the bus stop, and I frantically looked left and right, as if that would somehow make the bus appear. But there was nothing in sight. My girlfriend’s friends were waiting impatiently, and I did my best to assure them we would get to that dance workshop in time (I don’t think it was a dance workshop, but they love dance workshops in real life, so I assume that was where we were headed).

It got late, and I started to sweat. Everybody was mad. My girlfriend’s friends were mad they didn’t get to dance, and my girlfriend was mad that she's dating a guy who can’t comprehend a bus schedule.

Then I wake up.

Now, I’m no fan of the bus. Had this been real life, I would have picked those ladies up in my Prius and gotten us to that dance workshop as fast as my electric car could take us. Also, I don’t even talk to my girlfriend’s friends, so normally I wouldn’t take a dream such as this to heart.

Embarrassment is all I’ve been feeling lately.

High school classmates are getting engaged, old friends are enlisting in the military, current friends are landing high-paying internships. Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat are loaded with exotic vacation spots, professional offices and romantic dates.

My friend, Jaime, goes to Virginia Tech with me. We’re the same year and in the same major. Every summer, she has these amazing internships. This year, she’s working in Washington D.C. making bank. Meanwhile, I’m sitting on the couch, jobless and without pants, using my mom’s credit card to order a Batman mask on Ebay.

I’m stuck in place while everybody else is moving on with their lives. I’m a has-been at 21, cracking jokes in the classroom and brushing people off whenever they asked me about this scary place called the future.

I only live in the present, and even with that, I’m doing a terrible job. My phone lights up; I look at the screen and see that my friend, Taylor, is calling.

Sh*t, I think. “Hello?”

“You forgot, didn’t you?”

“What? No!” I run to my room and find some pants. “I’m about to park. I think I see you guys.” I get one leg in the pant sleeve.

“Where?”

“I’m waving! You don’t see me?” Both legs are in. “Don’t want to crash. See you in there. Bye.”

I totally forgot that I was supposed to get lunch with some high school friends today. I speed over to Rick’s Café, fixing my hair and straightening out my shirt before stepping through the door.

Besides the usual crap I always got from them for always being late, I was surprised to find out that all my friends had changed. Daniel got super buff; he picked up weightlifting since he started college, and he’s participating in a weightlifting contest this fall. Tom just finished basic training for the army and is back in town. Taylor looks more professional than I’ve ever seen her before, which is in stark contrast to her high school days of multi-colored highlights and nu-metal music. She's even started dating and brought her boyfriend, Jared, along.

Conversations about wages, commuting and LinkedIn are tossed around while I sit in the midst of it all. Bringing up video games and superhero movies would only make me feel like the guy who never left town, who sits on his porch steps with a ring of empty beer cans around an old cooler next him.

The ironic thing is that I’m not like that at all. I’m a rising senior at Virginia Tech, and I’ve had an amazing time hanging out with friends, holding leadership positions on campus, and studying Communication and English. I have nothing but love for the past three years. It's just that I have no idea what the next step is once I graduate.

College is like one big house party (literally and figuratively, but in this case let's stick with figuratively), and the party is about to end. Once everybody wakes up the next morning, they’ll get into their cars and drive off. They’ll take a second to look in the rearview mirror and find me in the middle of the road, reluctantly waving goodbye, before I get smaller and smaller until eventually, I’m completely out of view. They won’t think anything of it because they have somewhere else to be.

Meanwhile, my calendar is empty for the rest of the day, for the rest of the week, for the rest of the month, for the rest of the year.

“Chris?”

I phase out of my pity party. I haven’t taken a single bite of my eggs or grits; I scraped them around the plate for 30 minutes with my fork, and now they’re just mush. I look up to find Daniel, Taylor and Tom looking right back at me.

“Hmm?”

“The last season of 'The Flash,'” says Tom. “Have you seen it?”

“Oh,” I say with a half-laugh. “Yeah, of course. It’s pretty good.” I’m flattered they took a break from their adult talk to bring up the kind of stuff we used to talk about.

They look at each other for a second before Daniel turns to me again. “How was that fundraiser you set up for your org a few months ago? I saw it on Facebook, looked fun.” At this point, it’s obvious they’re just trying to get me into the conversation.

“It was good.” I nod, almost too much. “But that was a while ago. I just wish I had a summer job or—“

“I wish I was involved in that kind of stuff,” says Tom. “Since I got back from training, all I’ve been doing is applying to colleges. It’s stressing me out.”

“At least Chris likes his school,” says Taylor. “Ours always gets a bad rep. Right?” She nudges Jared, who’s glued to his phone.

“You guys have to download 'Pokémon Go,'” says Jared without looking up.

“I would if I had money,” says Daniel. “Man, I need a job so bad.”

“'Pokémon Go' is free, idiot.”

As I laugh at our conversation, I realize something: we’re all stuck at different places. Just because I don’t have a job doesn’t make me any less successful than my friends. I have a school that I’m proud of, which is all Taylor and Tom could ask for. Even though Daniel has a rockin’ body and I don’t, we’re both still unemployed, jealous of the fact that Tom, Taylor, and Jared have jobs.

We all have our own accomplishments, and we all have goals we’re striving for. Life isn’t about the pictures we pose for and post on social media; there’s so much more going on outside the four borders of our iPhone cameras.

Who would have thought that it took a lunch at Rick’s Café with some old friends to figure that out?

For hours, we sit at the table reminiscing and talking about the things we want but don't have. After a while, we get up, pay for our meals and say our goodbyes in the parking lot.

“You still drive that old pickup truck?” Daniel asks.

“No,” I say, pointing to my Prius. “My parents sold it one morning while I was sleeping. I woke up and found this in its place.”

Sometimes we sleep on change. In the blink of a second, we get older and unexpected opportunities pop up. From there on out, it’s our decision: do we sit on our asses and refuse change, or do we embrace it?

Even though I'm stuck, it’s my responsibility, and my responsibility alone, to get myself out.

The moment I get home, I dart into my room and get on Facebook. Scrolling through the list of friends online, I click on Jaime’s name.

Yo, I type. I hit send.

What’s up? she says after a few seconds.

How do you write a cover letter?