My contract ends and nobody blinks, which is its own problem

Nobody here has ever once been surprised by my end date. In two years of saying it I have not had a single flinch, which sounds like a relief and is actually the problem. People are so used to it that they apply the discount immediately, and I can watch them doing it across a table.

Thirty four, out west, and the contract has twenty six months left. I know the date. It is not a possibility, it is a diary entry.

What happens is this. I say the date, the other person nods, and everything after that is pitched at somebody who is leaving. Nothing gets planned past next season. No friends are introduced. It is all perfectly pleasant and it is a rehearsal for a relationship rather than one.

I do not want the discounted version. I want two years of the actual thing: a standing partnership, twice a week, arguments included, your people, my flat, the whole of it. Two years is long enough to build something that was worth building, even knowing exactly how it ends. I have watched two couples here do precisely that, and neither of them seemed to regret it afterwards.

Not looking for somebody who hears a countdown and thinks casual. Not looking to be talked into staying, since that is not in my gift. And not looking for another person on their own timer, because two clocks in one relationship makes for a very short year.