My oldest friend made this account in March, wrote the first version of the profile herself, and told me about it afterwards on the phone in the tone of a woman confessing to a small crime. I was furious for two days. Then I read what she had written about me, which was more accurate than anything I have managed in twenty five years, and I kept it and changed three words.
Forty seven, the Bronx, still working it out, and no experience at all beyond a very long time spent knowing.
She picked this sort of platform deliberately. Her argument was that I would talk myself out of anywhere that wanted a photograph and a quick decision, and that a board would at least let me write. She was right about both, and writing is the only place I have ever been any good.
What I want, as far as I can put it honestly: to be answerable to a woman who takes it seriously, in ordinary domestic matters rather than anything theatrical. That is the shape. The rest I would rather find out than announce in advance.
Not looking for anybody who needs to hear that I am new and then be reassuring about it. Not looking for a person who wants to move faster than a fortnight. And not looking to be somebody's good deed, a risk I am fully alive to given how this account came to exist.