I did the arithmetic on my replies and it explains everything
- Looking for
- one person willing to answer a plain message from somebody with no history
- Experience
- Fourteen months, ninety odd messages sent, four replies.
- Around
- Friedrichshain, Berlin
Ninety odd messages, four replies, one conversation that lasted longer than a week. I kept a note of it because I wanted to know whether I was doing something wrong or whether the board is simply built this way, and having looked at my own numbers I am fairly sure it is both. The people I write to receive many times what I do. None of that is unfair. It is the shape of the thing, and it took me a year to stop taking it personally.
Thirty four, Friedrichshain, curious, fourteen months in and nothing has happened yet.
What I changed is the message. I used to write three lines. Now I write six, all of them about something specific in the post I am answering, and the reply rate went from nothing to almost nothing, which is an improvement of a sort.
I am not certain what I want, and I would rather say so than assemble a confident list to look serious. Being given rules appeals to me. Being watched to see whether I keep them appeals to me more.
Not looking for sympathy, which is why the numbers are stated plainly rather than sadly. Not looking for a person who needs me to already know my own mind. And not looking to be told to be patient, because I have been extremely patient and patience on its own is not a method.