Nothing notable to report

This report covers a fourth date with the subject referred to here as M., held on Wednesday, May 20, at 8:00 pm, at a drive-in showing a film about Michael Jackson. The date ran 180 minutes. The cost was $63.50. It is the cheapest hour this file has recorded and the longest sitting since the first date.

There is nothing notable in it. That is the entry.

Summary of charges

• Duration: 180 minutes
• Questions asked by me: 5
• Questions asked by M.: 5
• Phone checks by M.: 0
• Phone checks by me: 0
• Admission: $20.50
• Snacks and drinks: $28.00
• Flowers: $15.00
• Out-of-pocket costs: $63.50, paid in full by me
• Travel, round trip: 90 minutes
• Follow-up: none

Cost per hour in person: $21.17, against $61.88, $84.02, and $47.91 on the 3 dates before it.

Scheduling

A fourth date was discussed on Friday, May 8, 2 days after the third. The reply was:

“I’m busy with a friend I haven’t seen a in a while”

That is the first request in this file to be declined. It was declined with a reason, given without being asked for, about a person who is not me.

M. then offered 2 dates, a week apart. I replied:

“I’m usually not greedy, but both please.”

She agreed to the first.

The record therefore reads: 1 request declined, 2 dates offered, 2 requested, 1 agreed. I want the middle clause left in. A man who opens with an assessment of his own greed, in a sentence whose second half asks for both, has told you the assessment is wrong and asked anyway.

It was agreed on Sunday, May 17, and held on Wednesday, May 20. That is 9 days from the first discussion to the agreement, and 14 days from the third date to the fourth, the longest interval in the arc so far. The agreement was reached by text. That is 4 dates and 4 agreements, none of them reached in person.

The venue

For 3 dates the car was the cost. 45 minutes out, 45 minutes back, 270 minutes of driving against 390 minutes of sitting across from her, and every entry in this file so far has had a line for the road.

On May 20 the car was both. The drive-in is in her neighborhood, 45 minutes each way, the fourth consecutive date held on her side of the map. I drove 90 minutes to sit in the same vehicle for another 180, facing the same direction she was facing, watching a film.

That is 270 minutes in a car on a single evening, of which 180 were with her and 90 were not. The vehicle that had been the price of every previous date became the place this one happened, without ceasing to be the price.

Across 4 dates: 360 minutes of driving, 570 minutes with her, and 180 minutes that are both at once.

The record

The events section of this report is empty.

We watched a film. We talked between stretches of it, infrequently, and then went back to watching. Neither of us checked a phone. Roughly 5 questions were asked in each direction, half the count of every previous date, which is what happens when the activity is not conversation.

I have gone looking for something to put in this section and there is nothing. No one was late. Nothing was returned to a kitchen. No premise failed, because the premise was a film and the film played. No strategy was disclosed by text. Nobody won anything on a card.

I hugged her at her car, as on the 3 evenings before it. That is the fourth consecutive parting initiated from the same side, and it is not in this section, because a thing that has happened every time is not an event.

The 3 entries before this one each turned on something going wrong or something being revealed, and this site is built to notice exactly that. Presented with an evening in which 2 people sat in a parked car and liked it, the instrument returns nothing. The accounting has no column for it. I record the absence of findings as the finding, which is the only move available to a form like this one.

The flowers

I bought flowers, about $15.00, and handed them to her at the start of the evening.

The first date in this file also carried a flower line at about the same figure. Both came off a card statement, as every line on every form here has.

The flowers are the only things I have bought in this arc for no purpose except to hand them to someone. Across 4 dates and $445.94 they are 2 lines and $30.00 of it.

What is documented is the handover, and it moved. On April 20 the roses waited in a parked car for 3 hours and were given at the end, next to a vehicle, as the evening closed. On May 20 the flowers were given at the beginning, and then both of us sat in the car with them for 3 hours.

I did not plan the change and I noticed it only while filing this report, which is the argument for filing reports.

Findings

Questions came out even a fourth time, 5 and 5. The count halved and the balance held. Across 4 dates the conversational column has balanced 4 times, at 10, 10, 10, and 5 apiece.

Phone checks were 0 and 0 for the fourth consecutive date, now across 570 minutes in person. Neither of us has reached for a phone once in 9 and a half hours, including 3 hours in a parked car with a film running.

No rationalization is recorded on this date. The count for the arc stands at 1, from May 5, and it has not moved.

Physical initiation: 1 and 0, the fourth consecutive evening and the fourth from the same side.

The evening itself produced no findings. Everything this report has to say happened by text, on May 8 and May 17, before either of us arrived, and in the space after it where a fifth date is not.

Costs

• Admission: $20.50
• Snacks and drinks: $28.00
• Flowers: $15.00
• Total: $63.50

The snacks cost more than the film. The flowers cost more than half the admission. This is the first evening in the arc where no single line exceeded $30.00, and the first where the largest line was food nobody drove 45 minutes for.

Running position: 4 of 4 dates held, $445.94 out of pocket, 570 minutes in person, 360 minutes of road, $0.00 contributed by the other party across all 4.

Status

The follow-up field reads none. The 3 reports before this one closed pending, pending and none, so no report in this file has yet closed with a next date in hand.

No fifth date was proposed, at the drive-in or since. The texting has continued at its usual rate. On May 8 there were 2 dates available and I asked for both of them; on May 20, at the close of the cheapest and quietest evening in the arc, there were none, and the second of the 2 she offered has not been mentioned again by either party.

The account is open. It has now recorded 1 rationalization, 4 even question counts, 0 phone checks across 570 minutes, 0 agreements made in person, 1 request declined, and 1 evening it cannot explain in its own terms.