Ten and fifteen

This report covers a first date with the subject referred to here as K., held on Saturday, September 5, at 7:00 pm, at The Canal Club. The date ran 180 minutes. The cost was $248.00, paid in full by me.

It is the third subject on this site and the second opened in September. Twelve encounters here have recorded a question count and all 12 came out even. This one did not. She asked more than I did, and I am the one who ended it.

Summary of charges

• Duration: 180 minutes
• Travel, mine: 60 minutes
• Travel, K.’s: 60 minutes
• Questions asked by me: 10
• Questions asked by K.: 15
• Phone checks by K.: 0
• Phone checks by me: 0
• Out-of-pocket costs: $248.00. Dinner and drinks $240.00, flowers $8.00.
• Amount contributed by K.: $0.00
• Follow-up: none

Cost per hour in person: $82.67. This arc: $248.00 across 1 date. All subjects: $2,850.94 across 2,505 minutes in person.

Before the date

K. and I were introduced by a matchmaker. Neither of us is a client of hers. We are both acquainted with her, which is how the introduction happened and is the reason there is no subscription line on this form.

I contacted her on Monday, August 31. The date was set the following day for Saturday, September 5, a lag of 5 days from first contact.

Between August 31 and September 5 there was a volume of text I did not count, and one phone call lasting 60 minutes.

The previous arc ran 120 days, 11 dates and $2,570.94, and every arrangement in it was reached by text. This file has a line for agreements reached in person and it has read 0 for 4 months. It has no line for the telephone at all, on this form or any other.

Ten and fifteen

We talked for 180 minutes. She asked 15 questions. I asked 10. She told long stories and told them well, and I listened to them.

Twelve encounters on this site have recorded a question count. Nine came out 10 and 10, two came out 5 and 5, one came out 6 and 6, and every single one of them was even. Each form noted the evenness and several of them made something of it.

This is the thirteenth, and it is the first that is not even. The direction is worth recording separately from the fact. The column did not break because somebody asked less than they were asked. It broke because the other party asked 5 more than the file has ever recorded anybody asking.

The counts here are approximations reconstructed by topic, as every count on this site has been, and 10 and 15 is an estimate in both halves. The gap is not.

She said I was not talking

Partway through, K. noted that I was not saying much and that she was doing most of it.

I told her that I am generally a quiet person and that I was enjoying listening to her. [paraphrase]

Both halves of that are true and the second one is the problem. She had just reported an imbalance in the evening and I confirmed it, described it as a preference, and left it in place for the remaining portion of the date. She raised the only deficiency in 180 minutes and the party responsible agreed with her assessment and did nothing about it.

There is a version of this form where that sentence is charming. I considered that reading and I am not taking it.

Travel

Sixty minutes each, round trip, from separate houses to a third place.

Twelve dates on this site have recorded travel. Eleven of them were unequal, and in 9 of those 11 my figure was 90 minutes. The only even row is June 28, a date whose title is the fact that it was in the middle.

This is the second balanced travel column in the file and the first at which both parties drove the same distance to a venue neither of them lives near.

The same evening, in April

The first entry on this site records 180 minutes, 10 questions from her, 10 from me, 0 phone checks, and $143.73 paid in full by me. It is titled for the fact that nothing in it went wrong.

This one records 180 minutes, 15 questions from her, 10 from me, 0 phone checks, and $248.00 paid in full by me. Travel was 90 and 40 in April and 60 and 60 in September. Every figure that moved, moved the same direction.

The first of those evenings was followed by 10 more dates, 119 further days, and $2,427.21. The second was followed by a text I sent the next morning.

The next morning

On Sunday, September 6, after thinking about it, I sent K. a message saying I had really enjoyed her company and did not feel a romantic connection.

She responded positively. We agreed we would like to stay friends, and we have been talking since.

That is the second account on this site closed by me in 3 days, and the first one closed while both parties were still on good terms with each other. It is also the only account here that has produced anything that continued after it closed.

The column that is not on this form

The panel at the bottom of this page reads 2 of 7. The columns that balanced are the driving and the count of positions stated.

By every measurement this site was built to take, this is the strongest evening in the file. The other party asked more questions than the narrator, which has not happened before. Nobody touched a phone for 180 minutes. The travel was even. There were no disclaimers, no rationalization, and nothing said that had to be written down and dated for later.

It ended anyway, on the say-so of the person who paid for it, for a reason this ledger has no line item for. Four months of receipts, 2,505 minutes and $2,850.94 have produced an instrument that can price a foot massage, a cancelled show and a dozen roses bought in advance, and it cannot record the only variable that decided this one.

That is not a complaint about the instrument. It is what the instrument is for. A ledger that could explain this would be a different document and it would be lying.

Findings

Questions: 10 and 15. The first uneven count in 13 recorded encounters, and the first in which the subject’s figure is the larger one.

Travel: 60 and 60. The second balanced travel column in the 13 dates that record one.

Phone checks: 0 and 0, in 180 minutes.

Voice calls before a first date: 1, lasting 60 minutes. The first in the file.

Disclaimers issued: 0. Rationalizations recorded: 0. Nothing was said on this date that had to be dated and held against a later one.

Positions stated: 1 apiece. Hers is that she was doing most of the talking. Mine is that I am quiet and was enjoying listening, which agreed with her and changed nothing about the remaining portion of the evening. Neither is a disclaimer. A disclaimer names a cost arriving later, and these 2 describe the evening they were said in.

Physical initiation: 1 and 0, being a hug and a kiss on the cheek at her car. It is the same column that read 18 to 1 across the previous arc and it opens here the same way.

Contributed by K.: $0.00. Three subjects, and the figure has never once been anything else where it could be measured at all.

Reciprocity: 2 of 5 columns balanced, on an evening the panel still cannot account for. One of the 2 is the question count, which the form now waves through at 10 and 15 without ever having believed either figure. The panel counts columns. It does not count the evening.

Costs

• Dinner and drinks: $240.00
• Flowers: $8.00
• Total: $248.00

Cost per hour in person: $82.67, against $68.29 across everything recorded here. It is the fourth most expensive hour on this site.

The flowers are the second floral line in the file. The first was 1 dozen roses at $15.00 on April 20, bought in advance and left in a parked car for 180 minutes. These were $8.00.

Running position, this arc: 1 of 1 dates held, $248.00 out of pocket, 180 minutes in person, 120 minutes of road between the 2 of us, $0.00 contributed by the other party.

Running position, all subjects: $2,850.94 out of pocket, 2,505 minutes in person.

Status

The follow-up field reads none. No second date was proposed by either party, at the table or afterward.

At the end of the evening I walked her to her car, hugged her, kissed her on the cheek, and drove home. We both sent a message saying we had got there.

The account is closed. The correspondence is not.

Recoverable: $0.00.