Riggers · the south, Amsterdam
Four flats in five years, and none of them my decision
Pinned as four_flats
- Wants
- somebody who wants a fixed point rather than a fixed address
- Rope so far
- Six years of rope, one partnership ended by a rhythm I could not keep.
- Around
- the south, Amsterdam
Four flats in five years and I chose none of the moves. One owner sold, one family member came back from abroad and wanted the room, one sublet was noticed by the building, and one landlord decided to renovate. I have packed the same eleven boxes four times and I now own furniture that two people can carry down a staircase.
Twenty nine, the south for the moment, six years of rope. What this does to a partnership is not obvious from outside one. It is not that I have nowhere. It is that wherever I have keeps changing, so nothing can be built around it, and every arrangement ends up with a clause in it about what happens when I move again.
My last one ended partly because of that. Nothing dramatic. She wanted a rhythm and I could not offer one for longer than about eight months at a stretch, and in the end the uncertainty was simply tiring for her.
So I am putting it in the post. I am reliable about time and unreliable about place. If you have somewhere stable, that changes the whole shape of what is possible and I would rather say so plainly than pretend it makes no difference. It also means I am unusually good at moving, which is the least useful skill I have ever acquired and the only one anybody ever asks me for.
What I want is one person, over years, and to be somebody's fixed point even when my address is not fixed at all.