Everything I want to say is longer than the box allows
- Looking for
- somebody who will read three paragraphs without calling it a lot
- Experience
- Seven years, two arrangements, both begun in writing.
- Around
- out by the ring, Amsterdam
I write long messages. Three or four paragraphs, properly punctuated, sent once and then left alone. The chat window is not built for this. It breaks a long message into a wall, it shows the other person a preview that makes it look enormous, and I have twice watched somebody open one, see the length, and never come back.
I have tried writing shorter. It produces conversations I do not enjoy, with people who would not have liked the longer version anyway, and the whole thing ends around week three when it becomes clear that neither of us has said anything.
Forty, out by the ring, switch, seven years in. Both of my arrangements began with a long exchange in writing and both lasted years.
What I want is one ongoing arrangement, both directions over time, with somebody who also thinks in paragraphs. I will tell you clearly what I want, what I do not, and where my limits are, in more detail than most people expect, and I would like the same back.
Not looking for anybody who answers a page with a word. Not looking to be told I am intense, which is the polite version of the same complaint. And not looking for a correspondence that never becomes a meeting, since a fortnight of this is plenty.