Switches · the west, London
Alternating is not the same as both of us wanting it
Pinned as turn_taking_not_fair
- Wants
- somebody for whom the swap is appetite rather than arithmetic
- Rope so far
- Seven years, one relationship that slowly turned into a rota.
- Around
- the west, London
We ended up keeping score. Not out loud and not on paper, but by the second year we both knew whose turn it was, and neither of us could remember the last time either had asked for something simply because they wanted it that evening. That is a strange way to discover a relationship has gone flat: you look at a fair, balanced, carefully alternating arrangement and realise nobody in it has wanted anything for months.
Thirty one, west London, seven years in. Since then I have become suspicious of fairness as an organising principle for this. It sounds unarguable and it turns two people into administrators.
What I want instead is somebody who says what they feel like, when they feel like it, and is comfortable being told no. If that produces four weeks in a row of the same direction, fine. If it produces an unequal year, also fine, provided both of us are actually getting what we want out of it rather than being polite.
I am aware this requires a person who can say a plain thing without a preamble, and that such people are less common than they should be. I am not one of them naturally either. I have had to learn it and I still get it wrong.
Not looking for anyone who wants a schedule. Not looking for someone who needs the swap to be even, because that is exactly the thing I am trying to get away from. And not looking for anything that has to be agreed at the start of the evening and then followed.