I took the word switch out of my first line, and it helped
Posted as word_i_stopped_using
- Looking for
- one person who is genuinely comfortable at both ends of it
- Experience
- Ten years, three dynamics, and about eight years of explaining myself.
- Around
- the city centre, Birmingham
For years that word did more harm than good. People read it as flexible, or as undecided, or occasionally as an invitation to negotiate me into whichever half they had already chosen. So I stopped leading with it and started describing what actually happens instead, and the quality of the messages changed within a fortnight.
Thirty six, city centre, ten years in, three dynamics of which one really worked.
What actually happens is this. There are weeks when I want to be responsible for somebody and weeks when I want somebody to be responsible for me, and neither is a mood I can put in a calendar. When it goes well, the other person finds that interesting rather than inconvenient. When it goes badly, I end up doing whichever side keeps the peace and slowly resenting a person who has done nothing wrong.
The one that worked ran four years and we did the simplest possible thing: on any given day, whoever asked first got the day, and if neither of us asked then nothing happened and that was fine too.
So I am looking for one person who really can do both. I ask about it early now and in some detail, because twice I have taken somebody at their word and twice I have turned out to be the only one who ever changed direction. Not looking for a person who will lead on request as a favour, which is a different thing and which I can spot in about two messages.