We found a relative on a board once and never quite recovered
Looking for a man from anywhere but our own half of the city
She read a post out to me at the kitchen table because it was unusually well written, and about four lines in I put my cup down, because I knew the phrase about his knee. I had heard it at every family gathering for nine years. It was her sister's husband.
Nothing happened. We did not answer it. He does not know we saw it and he never will, and I would like it recorded that we managed a full Sunday lunch six days later without either of us making a face. But we have not been the same about any of this since, and I do not think we are being unreasonable.
Thirty nine and thirty eight, the south of the city, four years in. She dates, occasionally, one man at a time. I know everything and I stay at home, which was my preference from the start and has not changed.
What it did to us in practice: we no longer read anything on our own side of the city, we never say what either of us does for a living until we have met, and we ask early where somebody grew up. Not out of snobbery. Out of arithmetic. Two people from the same six streets will find an overlap in under an hour of talking.
If you are reading this and thinking we are ridiculous, you may be right, and you are also not who we are writing for. If you are reading it and doing the same sums, write to us. We will be slow and we will not be strange about it.
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