Everywhere is twenty minutes, so you will have to say the real reason

In the last city I lived in, everybody had forty minutes of train to hide behind. If somebody did not want to see you they mentioned the journey and both of you accepted it and nothing true had to be said by anyone. Here there is nothing between two people except whether they want to be there. Twenty minutes, any direction, any weather.

Thirty three, east side, seven years of this. What I did not expect is how uncomfortable that makes a first month. You cannot drift. There is no logistics to blame and no natural gap in which to lose interest politely, so within about three weeks somebody has to say what they actually want, and it is usually me who has to.

I have come round to it. It is brutal and it saves whole seasons. I have had two conversations this year that would have taken until Christmas anywhere else, and both of them ended in a plain no, and I was grateful for both.

What I want is a partnership that runs over years, two evenings a week once we get there, and somebody who does not go silent for four days when a question is put to them directly. I am aware that I have now asked twice in one post for plain answers. It is the only thing I am inflexible about.

If you are the sort of person who needs a reason not to come, you will have to invent one here. I would very much rather you simply told me.