We have done this for eleven years. Please stop explaining it to us
Looking for a man who assumes we know what we are doing
Eleven years, four arrangements, roughly a hundred conversations that went nowhere, and we still get messages explaining what compersion is. We know. We have known since before some of the men writing to us had heard of any of it.
We are not annoyed at anybody in particular. We are annoyed at a pattern, which is that a couple who write calmly get read as a couple who are new, and men respond by being reassuring at us for four messages before saying anything about themselves.
Fifty and fifty three, the west, eleven years in. She dates, roughly monthly. He is not present, has never been present, and finds the whole subject of his own feelings about it much less interesting than everyone assumes.
What we want is what we have wanted for a decade: one man, for years rather than months, who is good company and easy to organise. Our last arrangement ran four years and finished when he moved abroad.
We cannot host on weeknights because her mother is with us three evenings a week. Not looking for anyone who needs to establish his credentials in paragraph one. Not looking for anyone who wants to talk about the psychology of it, which we have exhausted. Not looking for anyone who says he is looking for something long term and means until something better turns up, which is the specific disappointment we keep having.
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
Two people wrote this together, and both of them have to say yes to you. These are the three written for the man on the other end of it.
- What makes a single man read as safe
- Vetting a couple: the screening men skip
- The first meeting: a drink, all three of you