I have stopped writing in a voice I copied off the internet

Twenty four, and I have decided to stop performing a version of myself I read somewhere. Every message I sent in my first year was written by somebody who had memorised a register, and the two women who replied both worked that out inside a fortnight.

So, without the accent on: north London, I work in a bookshop and I do sound for small theatre things at weekends, which pays badly and which I love. I live with three other people and a rota nobody follows. I have no money and a great deal of time.

What I want is to be told what to do by a woman who is older than me and knows what she is doing, in something that runs a long time and is mostly ordinary. I am not especially interested in pain and I do not have a list. I like being useful and I like being corrected, and the second one I find very hard to admit to anybody my own age.

I have done nothing except talk. One woman I spoke to for three months, which ended when she said, kindly, that she thought I wanted a mother. I have been sitting with that ever since. I do not think she was right, and I understand why she said it.

Not looking for anything I cannot reach on a night bus. Not looking to be somebody's first attempt at leading, only because I would be no help at all. Not looking for a woman who wants me quiet and decorative, since I talk constantly and it would end in tears.