An update wiped every conversation I had, and it was a relief
- Looking for
- a small number of conversations that are actually going somewhere
- Experience
- Four years, one dynamic of a year, ended well and stayed friendly.
- Around
- downtown, Los Angeles
In March something went wrong with an update and I lost the lot. Sixty odd conversations, a year and a half of them, some going back to before I had any idea what I was doing. I was upset for about two days and then I noticed that of the sixty, four were things I actually missed. The other fifty six were a kind of low grade obligation I had been carrying around without ever deciding to.
Thirty one, downtown, switch, four years in, one arrangement of about a year that ended kindly.
I wrote to the four. Three answered. That is a better week than any month I had before the crash, and it has permanently changed how I use this thing: I keep a small number of live conversations and I close the rest out loud rather than letting them go quiet.
What I am after is a single arrangement with a real shape to it, in either direction, with somebody who wants the same. Structure, a regular evening, expectations we both actually said out loud.
Not looking to be one of forty. Not looking for anybody who keeps conversations open for years on the grounds that you never know. And if I close ours, you will get a sentence saying so, because I owe everybody that and I did not always do it.