It goes in the first line, because halfway down is worse

Fifty three, and that goes at the very top rather than the fifth line, because I have tried it the other way and a discovery halfway down a conversation is worse for everybody involved. The visible half of this city is about thirty. I am conscious of that every time I walk into a room and I have long since made my peace with it.

Both ends of the rope, twenty two years in, the Stockport side. I was doing this before most of the room started and I have very little interest in mentioning it, because seniority is a tedious thing to claim and nobody owes me anything for having been early.

What age has actually given me is a much shorter list of things I want and considerably less patience for arranging my life around somebody who is not sure. I know what a good week looks like. I know within about two evenings whether something has any chance.

There is a particular reply I get, which is warm and admiring and quietly ends the conversation. I would genuinely prefer a flat no. If my age is not for you, that is completely fine, and one line saying so is a kindness rather than a rudeness.

What I want is a partner somewhere in the second half of their own life, or somebody younger who is honestly not thinking about it, and years rather than months. An evening a week, both directions, and eventually two people who know each other's habits well enough to stop discussing them.