Riggers · the west end, Toronto
I arrived braced for the question and nobody has ever asked it
Pinned as nobody_cares_where_from
- Wants
- a partner who wants the long version eventually, not the short one now
- Rope so far
- Six years, four of them here, two somewhere with fewer people in it.
- Around
- the west end, Toronto
Nobody asked me where I was from. Not in the first month, not in the first year. I had arrived with an answer prepared and a certain amount of armour on, having spent my twenties somewhere that question was the first thing out of anybody's mouth, and here it simply never came. It took me about a year to work out whether that was good.
Thirty, the west end, six years in this and four years in the country. My conclusion, for whatever it is worth, is that it is mostly good and slightly lonely. Nobody assumes anything about me, which is a real relief. Nobody asks about the half of my life that happened elsewhere either, and that half is not small.
So what I want from a partner is a bit particular. Not somebody fascinated by where I come from, which is the other failure and a worse one. Somebody who, over months, becomes interested in me in the ordinary way, and who eventually gets the long version because that is what happens when two people actually know each other.
The rest is unremarkable. One person, over years. I would like to be able to talk about my family without it becoming a topic. And I would like somebody who understands that a person can be entirely at home in a place and still be doing a small amount of translation every single day.