Forty seven, nine months in, and please stop telling me I am quick

Nine months. That is the whole of it, and I would like people to stop telling me how quickly I am picking it up, because I am not, and the compliment has started to feel like a polite way of ending a conversation early.

Forty seven, the Stockport side. I came to this late for entirely ordinary reasons: a long marriage, a busy decade, and a general assumption that it was something other people did. I am extremely conscious of being a beginner among people who have been at it since their twenties, and I have concluded that the only sensible response is to put it at the front of anything I write.

What I am not a beginner at is being an adult. I have run things, looked after people, and had difficult conversations for a living for twenty years. The part of this that is about paying close attention to another person comes naturally to me. The part that is about my hands is nine months old and it shows.

What I want is a partner who is patient with that specific gap, and who would rather build something across three or four years than have one very good evening next Friday. I am slow, I intend to stay slow, and I am not in a race with anybody.

Not looking for a teacher exactly, though I would obviously learn from anyone further along. Not looking for somebody who wants a beginner precisely because a beginner is easy to impress. Not looking, above all, to be flattered.