On the community platform nobody has ever mentioned where I live. People there met each other at things, or through somebody, and an extra half hour is simply part of the evening. On the products that sort by distance I am on the edge of everybody's world, and I have watched perfectly good conversations end the moment my neighbourhood came up. Same borough, same me, two completely different verdicts.
Thirty, the Bronx, switch, six years in. One arrangement ended because he decided the journey was the problem, six months in, having made it twenty times.
What I have concluded is that a platform which puts distance at the centre of the interface makes distance the centre of the relationship. Nobody was ever thinking about the train until an app put a number on it.
What I want is ongoing, either direction with a lean towards being led, structured, with a rhythm we agree rather than improvise. I am reliable and I do not cancel.
Not looking for anybody who will treat the trip as a favour they are doing me, because I make it as often as they do. Not looking for a person who needs to see me twice a week. And not looking to move, which somebody suggested in month four as though it were an obvious solution.