I write too much and I am aware of it, so this is the short version

The first draft of this ran to nine hundred words and included a paragraph about my childhood. I have deleted it. This is the fourth attempt and it is still the longest post on the page, which tells you the main thing you need to know about me.

Thirty one, north of the river, two years in. Three long written exchanges, all of which I ended by writing something enormous at the point where a normal person would have suggested a coffee. I am not shy in person. I am simply better at the version of myself that gets to revise.

What I actually want: to be answerable to a woman on a weekly basis, in writing as much as anything, with tasks and a report and somebody who will tell me when I have written four paragraphs where one would do. I would be a good correspondent for somebody who likes that and an enormous nuisance to somebody who does not.

I am aware of how this reads. A man who says he writes too much and then writes too much is not making a joke, he is demonstrating a problem. I know. It is the problem. I am asking for somebody who finds it workable rather than charming, because charm wears off around week five and workable does not.

Not looking for phone calls, not looking for anything at short notice, and not looking for a woman who would like me to be more spontaneous. I have tried. It is not in me.