We are here, ultimately, because we are fed up with being unseen; we have come here to be known, to share our inner lives, for another person to witness us as we really are. But herein lies a paradox of early dating: if we say too much too soon, if we too readily declare ourselves, if we show now what our last three partners knew by the end, we will be abandoned. And so we have few options other than to hedge. Some may call it lying; we prefer ‘editing’. We tell them that our first relationship was ‘somewhat stormy…’ We remark that we’ve had ‘a few ups and downs’ professionally. Our father is described as ‘intense.’ The situation with our children is ‘not always cheerful…’ Our mood is ‘occasionally melancholic…’ We opt to say nothing at all about our kidneys and our brother in law. This also won’t be the moment to bring up the pending lawsuit.
As a result of such judicious management, we succeed. There is a second date and a tenth. They won’t flee when we finally describe the full details of the divorce and the legal challenges in our business because they have the balancing evidence of our long ministration through their stomach ailment and behaviour around the crisis with their friend in early June. The months will have taught them that we are not merely foolish and thoughtless, not just impatient and very very odd.