Equidistant

This report covers a seventh date with the subject referred to here as M., held on Sunday, June 28, at 7:00 pm, at a performance of Drunk Shakespeare. The venue was 25 minutes from my house and equidistant between us. The date ran 180 minutes. The cost was $207.44, paid in full by me.

It is the first date in this arc held at a place that was not on her side of the map, and the first at which the other party traveled at all.

Summary of charges

• Duration: 180 minutes
• Distance to venue: 25 minutes, from each of us
• Questions asked by me: 5, approximate
• Questions asked by M.: 5, approximate
• Phone checks by M.: 0
• Phone checks by me: 0
• Out-of-pocket costs: $207.44
• Amount contributed by M.: $0.00
• Travel, round trip, mine: 50 minutes
• Follow-up: yes, set by text before this report was filed

Cost per hour in person: $69.15. Cumulative: $1,140.06 across 7 dates.

Equidistant

Dates 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 were held in her neighborhood, 45 minutes from mine. Date 5 was held 20 minutes from me and I drove 135 minutes, because I went and collected her. The running total for the road stands at 585 minutes of mine against 160 of hers, which is a ratio of 3.7 to 1 and has never once run the other way.

This one was 25 minutes from me and 25 minutes from her.

On June 17 I sent a message listing the time, the energy, and the driving as the resources I was contributing, and named the imbalance. Eleven days later the venue was in the middle and my share of the drive had fallen from 90 minutes to 50. I am recording that as an outcome because it is one, and I am aware of what it means to have produced a change in the geography of a relationship by filing a complaint about mileage.

The word for the arrangement is equidistant. It is the first time it applies. On 6 previous dates M.’s travel ran between 5 and 20 minutes each way, from her own neighborhood, against my 45. On this one we each drove 25 minutes, which is the smallest figure in my column since April 20 and the largest in hers.

The third option

On May 27 I sent 3 options: a blues club, a restaurant, and Drunk Shakespeare. M. said she wanted all 3. I told her to prioritize and she chose the restaurant, which became date 5 and cost $367.00.

The show was the option that did not get picked. It was proposed again after the phone call, floated into an unnamed week, taken off the table by me on June 24, and put back on it by her on June 25 with a day attached.

It ran 32 days after the menu was sent. Two of the 3 items on that menu have now been consumed at a combined cost of $574.44, and the blues club has not been mentioned since.

The date

Questions came out even a seventh time, 5 and 5, approximate. The count is half the usual, which is what this file records whenever the evening has an activity in it: the drive-in in May returned the same figure, and the 4 sit-down dates returned 10 apiece.

Phone checks were 0 and 0. The column returns to 0 after the single check on June 9, which was a missed work shift and had nothing to do with the evening it interrupted.

I offered to pick her up. She wanted to meet there.

That is the second time the offer has been made and declined, and both are entered as limits she set. The first was April 25, on the second date, in a strip mall in her neighborhood. The one date on which I did collect her was May 30, which is also the only date in this arc that did not end with 2 cars in a parking lot. This one ends with 2 cars, 25 minutes from the venue in opposite directions.

My share of the road was 50 minutes, the smallest figure on any form in this file. The running total is 635 minutes.

The parting

At her car I kissed her and hugged her. Both are mine.

Kissing has been a feature of every date since June 9, when she asked for it. That request is still the only entry in her half of this column, and on the evening after the terms were agreed the column returns to 1 and 0.

The follow-up

By the time this report is filed, the next date is already set. We are going to a mall together, agreed by text.

That is the first time in this arc that a date has closed with the following one already in hand. On dates 1, 2 and 3 the next was agreed afterward, by text, within a day or 3. On date 4 the field read none for 7 days. On date 6 it took 16 days, a phone call and a memo.

The mechanism is unchanged: it was agreed by text, which makes 7 dates and 7 agreements reached that way, and none in person. What changed is the lag, which is now 0.

Findings

Geography: first equidistant venue in 7 dates, 11 days after the imbalance was named in writing. My road time fell to 50 minutes from a running average of 97.

Travel: 25 minutes each way, both of us. It is the first row on any form in this file where the 2 columns hold the same number and neither of them is a question count.

Communication: the cadence held from June 25 to June 28. That is the first measurable window after the terms were agreed, it is 3 days long, and both sides of the division of labor held inside it. The structure was mine and the warmth was hers, as specified.

Questions: even a seventh time. 7 dates, 7 balanced counts. No other column on any of these forms has balanced once, though 2 moved in the right direction this month.

Disclaimers: 8 on file, none new. Rationalizations: 1, from May 5, unchanged.

Limits set: 1, hers, being the declined offer to collect her. The running figure is 3 hers to 1 mine.

Physical initiation: 1 and 0. The running figure across 7 dates is 9 mine and 1 hers.

Contributed by M.: $0.00, across 7 dates and $1,140.06.

Costs

• Tickets and drinks, Drunk Shakespeare: $207.44
• Total: $207.44

The figure is not itemized in my records and I cannot separate the tickets from the bar.

This entry takes the arc past $1,000.00. The cumulative figure at the close of date 7 is $1,140.06 against 1,110 minutes in person, which is 18 and a half hours at an average of $61.62 an hour, plus 635 minutes in a car. The amount recoverable is $0.00, as it is on every form on this site, and for once that is not the punchline of the report but a line in it.

Status

The follow-up field reads yes, which on this site means a next date was in hand when the report closed. It is the second report in 8 to manage it, and the first date to.

The account is open. It records 8 disclaimers, 1 rationalization, 2 silences, 7 even question counts, 1 phone check in 1,110 minutes, 0 agreements reached in person, $0.00 contributed by the other party, 635 minutes of road, and 1 venue in the middle.