Twenty two miles apart, one shared free morning, and it worked
- Looking for
- the same again, with somebody who plans instead of hoping
- Experience
- Eleven years, three dynamics, the last of them two years at a distance.
- Around
- the Valley, Los Angeles
The best arrangement I have had in this city was with somebody twenty two miles away, which by the arithmetic of this board should have been hopeless. It worked because we found the one window we both genuinely had, a Thursday morning, and we built everything on it: the same hours every week for two years, tasks and reporting in between, and no pretence that we would ever manage a spontaneous evening.
Forty four, the Valley, switch, eleven years in, and that one ended last spring when she took a job in another state.
I write this because the standard advice on here is to filter hard on distance and I no longer think that is right. The thing that kills a dynamic is not miles, it is two people waiting for a convenient moment that this city does not produce. Find the window, protect it, and twenty two miles is nothing.
I am looking for either direction, though I have led more in recent years. Structure, a fixed weekly window, real expectations in between, and a proper conversation every few months about how it is going.
Not looking for anybody whose availability is described as flexible, which in my experience means unplanned. Not looking for somebody who wants to see how things develop. And not looking for a person who has never once put a recurring commitment in their week.