On the general apps I was, by ordinary standards, doing perfectly well. Then at forty six I moved onto a specialist community platform and discovered that most of what I thought I knew was the local dialect of a place where nobody does this seriously. I got a great deal wrong in my first year and was corrected, patiently and in public, by people fifteen years younger than me.
Forty six, the Bronx, dominant. Twelve years of one kind of experience and two of a very different kind.
The specific thing I had wrong was pace. On a mainstream product you establish something in an evening because there may not be another evening. In a place where everybody is still around next month, the entire point is that nothing has to be established quickly, and behaving otherwise marks you out inside a week.
What I want now is an ongoing arrangement with a woman who wants structure and has patience for somebody still adjusting his instincts. Weekly, service led, written down.
Not looking for anybody who wants a confident man with no learning curve, because I would rather be honest than impressive. Not looking to be graded. And not looking for a person who finds arriving late to the serious version of this embarrassing, because it took me until forty six and here I am.