Every conversation stalls at the point where I am asked to be certain
- Looking for
- somebody who can talk to a person who has not decided
- Experience
- None. Four conversations, all of them stopped at the same question.
- Around
- north of the river, London
The pattern is identical every time. A friendly start, a few days of ordinary conversation, and then a version of the same question: so what are you, then. And whatever I say next is wrong, because the honest answer is that I am not sure, and the honest answer reads as either evasive or as a person wasting somebody's time. Four conversations, four stalls, all in the same place.
Thirty nine, north of the river, and completely new to this.
I understand why the question gets asked. Everyone here has to sort an enormous number of people quickly and the label is the fastest way to do it. But there is no version of the truth I can give that fits into the box, and inventing one to keep the conversation alive seems like a very bad way to begin anything.
What I can say is what I respond to when I read about it, which is authority exercised over ordinary things, consistently, by somebody who pays attention. Beyond that I do not know, and I would like to find out slowly.
Not looking to be assigned a label to make things easier. Not looking to try things in order to settle the question. And not looking for anybody who needs certainty from me before they will talk properly, because that is the thing I am here to get.