I will only go the other way with somebody I already know in person
- Looking for
- a long acquaintance first and everything else considerably later
- Experience
- Nine years, four arrangements, two of them reciprocal.
- Around
- the west, Sydney
One direction I will discuss with a stranger. The other I will not, at all, until I have spent real time with somebody in ordinary circumstances, and by real time I mean months rather than a coffee. This is not caution for its own sake. It is that the version of me that hands over control is not a version I am willing to introduce to a chat window.
The app has no concept for this. Everything about it is built to accelerate: match, message, meet, decide. The one thing I need is duration, and there is no button for duration.
Thirty seven, out west, switch, nine years in. Four arrangements, two of which went both ways, and both of those started as friendships that lasted a year before anything else was discussed.
So what I am actually posting for is the slow version. Talk for a long time. Meet in daylight, repeatedly, with no expectation attached. Let one thing establish itself properly before the other is even raised. If that sounds like a lot of work for an uncertain outcome, it is, and it is the only version that has ever worked for me.
Not looking for anybody who wants to negotiate the whole thing this month. Not looking for a person who reads slowness as a lack of interest. And not looking to be told that I could simply try it and see, which is advice from people whose worst outcome was mild embarrassment.