I am written to as a category, so here is the actual man
Looking for somebody writing to me rather than to an idea
Most of the messages I receive are addressed to a type. They arrive with the assumptions already fitted: what I am like, what I want, how I behave, what sort of presence I am supposed to be in a room. A few are flattering. Almost none of them are about me, and I have grown tired of being the blank space the assumptions get written onto.
So, plainly. Thirty nine, the western districts. I have a dog with strong views and a long dull job with a lot of responsibility in it and no glamour whatsoever. I read in the evenings. I am quiet in company, which I am told reads as either confidence or coldness depending entirely on who is doing the reading. I am not performing anything and I never have been.
Eight years in this, three arrangements, the longest four years. What I am genuinely good at is being consistent. I answer messages. I arrive when I said I would. I notice when the tone of somebody's writing has changed and I ask about it rather than waiting.
What I want is one couple, seen regularly, where I am a person they know rather than a role they have cast. I am not going to be anybody's figure from a story and I have stopped pretending I might grow into one.
If the man in the second paragraph sounds dull to you, that is a fair reading and it is genuinely useful for both of us. He is what is on offer and there is not a second version behind him.
Before the first drink Replying goes through the connected platform, so nothing about you is shared until you decide to share it. Take contact slowly and keep identifying details back until trust is earned. Meet somewhere public the first time, with your own way home from it, and if you are a couple then go together. Tell someone outside it where you are going. Never send money to someone you have not met. And if a post or a reply reads wrong, flag it rather than talking yourself out of the feeling.
Before you answer a post like this
Answering as a couple means screening him together rather than one of you doing it privately. Start here.
- Screening a third as a couple, not alone
- The six things to agree before you answer anyone
- Rules that survive contact with a real evening