Twenty two years of switching with one person, and now nobody
Posted as only_ever_with_him
- Looking for
- somebody patient with a person who has never negotiated with a stranger
- Experience
- Twenty two years, all of it inside one marriage, none of it with anybody else.
- Around
- the 905, Toronto
Twenty two years of switching with exactly one person. We started in our twenties, we worked most of it out ourselves, badly and then well, and when the marriage ended two years ago I discovered I had no idea how any of this works with a stranger.
Forty seven, the 905. On paper I have more experience than almost anybody who will read this. In practice I have never negotiated with somebody who did not already know me, never had a conversation about limits with a person whose face I could not read at a glance, and never once had to explain myself from the beginning.
It is a very strange combination and it has made me clumsy. Twice this year I have said something early in a conversation that landed completely wrong, because it was shorthand from a marriage and meant nothing to the person hearing it.
What I want is somebody patient with that. Ideally somebody also coming out of something long, though I know how narrow an ask that is. Both directions, as it always was, with a strong preference for one person over time rather than several.
I have a house in the 905, my children are with me half the time, and on the other half I have more free evenings than I know what to do with. Not looking to be anybody's introduction to switching. Not looking for somebody who wants to hear about the marriage in detail. Not looking to move quickly, although I am not going to be precious about it either.