If I am not going to pursue this, you will hear so within a week
- Looking for
- somebody who would rather be told no in April than nothing until August
- Experience
- Eight years, two arrangements, both ended by conversation.
- Around
- out by the ring, Amsterdam
I close conversations. Out loud, in one sentence, usually inside a week, and I have been told this is harsh by people who would evidently prefer to be left in a queue indefinitely. In a pool this small, keeping six people warm is not kindness. It is holding up six other people's months.
The sentence is always some version of: I have enjoyed this and I am not going to take it further, and I wish you well. I do not explain, because an explanation invites a negotiation and there is nothing to negotiate. About one person in ten answers angrily. About three thank me.
Forty one, out by the ring, dominant, eight years in. Two arrangements, both of which ended in a conversation rather than a silence, and both of those people are still in my life, which I do not think is unrelated.
What I want is one arrangement with a clear shape. Written expectations, a fixed evening, reporting between, and an agreed way for either of us to say it has stopped working.
Not looking for anybody who reads directness as coldness. Not looking to be somebody's ninth open chat. And not looking for a person who cannot say no themselves, because if you cannot say it you will not say the other difficult things either.