Four years, one partner, no basis for comparison at all

One person, four years, and that is the entire extent of what I know. We met when I was twenty two and it ended in the winter, amicably, for reasons that had far more to do with which city he wanted to live in than with anything between us. I have no idea whether the way we did things was ordinary, unusual, good, or simply what the two of us happened to land on.

Twenty six, the west end. That gap is why this post is careful rather than confident. When somebody describes how they like to run a partnership, I have exactly one thing to hold it against, and I have started to notice that I treat that one thing as the standard without intending to.

So I am slow. I ask a lot of questions that probably sound like doubt and are really just me building a second data point. I would rather admit that here than have somebody discover in month two that they are being quietly measured against a man they will never meet.

What I want is a long partnership rather than a survey. I am not going to go and gather experience with three people so that I arrive better calibrated, because that is not who I am. I would rather say plainly that I am inexperienced in a strange, narrow way and find somebody who is not put off by it.