One glossary page frightened me off for a whole year
- Looking for
- somebody patient with questions that are going to sound naive
- Experience
- None. One year away from the subject entirely, and now back.
- Around
- the east end, Toronto
Eighteen months ago I read one word on a glossary page, closed the tab, deleted the app and did not think about any of it for a year. I have come back because the wanting did not go anywhere, and I want to say plainly that the reading can be far worse than the reality.
Forty four, east end. What I ran into was a page describing the extreme end of something and presenting it as the ordinary meaning of the word. Because I had nobody at all to ask, I assumed that was the deal on offer. It took a year and one fairly frank conversation with a friend to learn otherwise.
I still do not know what I am. I know that what draws me is control over ordinary decisions rather than anything intense, and I now know that most of what frightened me is not compulsory and a good deal of it is rare.
What I want is a conversation with somebody patient about questions that will sound naive. I would like to know how people actually decide what they do together, and what the first six months of a real arrangement looks like when nobody is writing it up for an audience.
Two children, half the week, so my time is the other half and it is genuinely free.
Please do not send me a reading list. Reading is what got me into trouble. I would like to talk to a person.