Nine months of writing, nothing back, and I am asking why

Since last October I have written eleven letters. Real ones, one at a time, each one about the person I was writing to. I have had no reply of any kind. Not a refusal, not a line, nothing.

I am not writing this to be pitied and I am not going to be rude about it, because I know what the numbers look like from the other side. But I would genuinely like to know what I am doing wrong, and the silence is the one thing that cannot teach me.

Thirty seven, out past the last of the tube in one direction, an hour into town on a good day. I suspect that is most of it. I suspect a woman reads the postcode, does the arithmetic on a Wednesday evening in February, and closes the tab, and I cannot honestly say she is wrong.

So here is my answer to that before it is asked. I can be in town by half seven on any weekday if I leave work at five, I have done that journey twice a week for six years for reasons far less interesting than this, and I would rather come to her than ever ask her to come out here.

What I want is a long arrangement rather than an evening. Service, structure, an actual place in a week. And if the answer is no, I would still rather have the no. I can work with a no.