I do not start anything between the new year and the thaw
Posted as nothing_new_january
- Looking for
- one long partnership with somebody who genuinely goes both ways
- Experience
- Sixteen years, and a rule about seasons that has improved all of them.
- Around
- the east end, Toronto
I have a rule and it has improved my life considerably: I do not start anything new between the new year and the thaw. Nothing begun in January has ever survived here. Everybody is broke, everybody is tired, half the plans are cancelled by weather, and by the time the city defrosts you are two months into something that has never once had a proper conversation.
So I start things in the spring or the early autumn and I am ruthless about it. Forty two, the east end, switch, sixteen years in. Yes, this means turning down promising people in February and telling them to write to me in April. Three have done it. Two of those went somewhere.
What I want is one long partnership with somebody who switches genuinely. I lead more often than I bottom, roughly two to one, and I have no interest in a fixed ratio or a rota. It moves.
I should say that I am not a warm person on first meeting. I have been told that I interview people, which is fair. What follows once I have decided about somebody is a great deal warmer than the first hour suggests, but the first hour is what it is and I have stopped pretending otherwise.
Practical: the east end, I can host, I have a dog and no interest in rehoming it. Not looking for anybody who describes switching as a fifty fifty split, which in my experience means it has never been tested. Not looking to be anybody's second attempt at this.