I live seventy minutes out and the journey ends every evening
Posted as the_midnight_return
- Looking for
- somebody who understands that leaving at eleven is not rejection
- Experience
- Seven years, both directions, two dynamics of about a year each.
- Around
- the inner suburbs, Paris
Seventy minutes each way, and the last usable train back is earlier than anybody in the centre ever believes. I have spent seven years standing up in the middle of good evenings and leaving, and I have twice had it read as coldness, and once as a lie about being married.
Thirty three, switch, seven years. I live out past the end of the line because that is what I can afford and because my mother is nearby and needs me to be. Neither of those is changing.
The effect on this is total. Anything that starts at nine in the centre gives me ninety usable minutes. Anything that involves staying is impossible without an arrangement made days in advance. I have therefore become the person who plans everything, which suits some people and irritates others.
What actually works, and I say this from experience, is one long day rather than three short evenings. A Saturday from morning. That is worth more to me than a fortnight of snatched hours and it is the thing I am really looking for.
I lead and follow about equally and I am equally happy either way with the right person. If you are also out here, in any direction, please write, because there are a great many of us and we all behave as though the city is the only place anything can happen. Not looking for anybody who will say they understand about the trains and then propose ten in the evening again on Thursday.