Nine people have left this city on me and I am not going anywhere
Posted as nine_goodbyes
- Looking for
- somebody whose plans are actually here
- Experience
- Twenty years, both directions, three dynamics ended by relocation.
- Around
- the south, Amsterdam
Nine goodbyes in eleven years. Every one of those people meant it when they said they were staying, and every one of them left when a contract finished or a company moved them or a parent fell ill somewhere else. That is what this city does and nobody warns you about it when you arrive.
Forty eight, switch, in the south, came here from Canada at thirty seven and took citizenship four years ago. I am not going anywhere.
I am not bitter about any of them. Two are still close friends and one phones me every month. But I have noticed that I now hold something back at around the six month mark, and I do not like that in myself.
So this is a request rather than an advertisement. I want somebody whose life is here. Not permanently, because nobody can promise that, but whose plan is here, whose family situation is here, whose work is not a two year posting. Tell me the truth about it in the first exchange rather than letting me work it out from something you mention in August.
I switch evenly and I want one person for both directions over a long time. Not looking for anybody in their first year here, purely on the odds. Not looking to be somebody's introduction to the country. Not looking for a person who will find this post unwelcoming, which I suspect it is, and which I have decided I can live with. If you are staying, tell me what is keeping you here. That is the only question in this entire post whose answer I actually care about.