romance

“There is always time enough for lo” — well, this is a dash embarrassing, isn’t it?

The quote in question is:

There is always time enough for love.

This is a document describing why you, or perhaps someone you know, might like to date me.

MFSB – Love Is the Message / Two Lone Swordsmen – It’s Not The Worst I’ve Ever Looked (Lali Puna Remix) / Emma-Jean Thackray – Venus (Black Science Orchestra Tough Love Remix) / FKA twigs – Home With You

an intro

Hello! I’m Thor. I’m a Canadian in New York City, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I moved here in 2015, and, to my continual surprise, have not left yet.

I am a straight, cis man — 5’10”, born in 1982, in September. At time of writing, this makes me 42. I’ve spent time in Vancouver, Montréal, and Berlin; I love nature and am deeply worried about our climate doom, but I am a city person at heart.

I’ve got an adorable, blind, old, grumpy rescue cat named “Lavender LaRoux Jules Verne”. She’s a wonder and a demon and a floof:

More blah-blah résumé stuff: I write code for a living, ideally code about or around music. I’ve worked for Spotify, Bandcamp, and am currently at Datadog. I have a B.Sc in Music & Computer Science from the University of Victoria, an M.Sc in Music Technology from McGill, and a successful career — but I also spent seven years doing audio, video game audio, and techno things, which hopefully gets me off the main sequence a little bit.

I’d like to, as they say, “meet a girl”. I’d like to do a a big romance, I’d like to have children, I’d like to meet the or at least a love of my life. I’m pretty content being content in New York City, but I think there is something more — maybe that’s you.

Prince – I Want To Be Your Lover / Carly Rae Jepsen – Cut To The Feeling / Talking Heads – Take Me To The River / mai.la – Ready

what I’m looking for

To the front: the kind, the thoughtful, the decent in these years of the institutionally indecent, the very-clever-who-also-know-that-being-clever-is-not enough; the skeptics, the non-dogmatic, almost certainly the leftists. You don’t need to live in New York City, but it sure really would help.

Continue to the front: techno people, disco people, dance music people, classical music people, weird classical music people, climbers, cyclists, media art folks, computer people who are not tech bros or tech broettes, etc. If you’re thinking about the future, we should hang out.

I want to overlap with someone in a non-trivial amount, but I also want someone who has some of their own thing, and vice-versa. I don’t want to do everything with you or spend every waking moment with you, but it seems nice to have an obsession or two in common.

I love cleverness, conversation and nonsense, but I also have a lot of time for silence. I know I don’t want to date a manic pixie dream girl, but I also know that I’m not the kind of personality who provides all of the sweep-me-off-my-feet, as it were, in a relationship. This does not mean that I am looking for someone to “complete me”, or to be responsible for my emotional wellbeing, etc etc — but it may be as simple as meaning that I’m often shy, and two often shy people going on dates can often not work out.

Bonus points are awarded for being from west of the Mississippi and / or west of the Rockies — If you know what I mean when I say I was born on W̱SÁNEĆ territory, go to the head of the class. Further bonus points are given for knowing who, say, CCL is, or maybe DJ Voices, or Lea Bertucci, or Olivier Messiaen. Did I mention I had a record on Kompakt?

Loose Joints – Is It All Over My Face? / Dougie & The Tone Drifters – Accidentally Well Dressed / Alban Berg – Lyric Suite I / Tyler Drift – Style

what I’m not looking for

If you’re any of the below, you can probably stop reading now: it is not meant to be, good luck!

🟥 — A MAGA person. I don’t love the ability of the establishment-left / center-left to create meaningful change as we enter into a very difficult time, but I am very confident that the answer is not cults of personality and strongman behaviour.

💫 — A magical person. If you’re seriously into tarot / numerology / astrology / Catholic saints / Myers-Briggs / the I Ching / etc, we’re not going to work out. (But please don’t be an SF rationalist either, yikes!)

😾 — A hater-of-cats person. My next cat will be a shorthair, as I am myself a bit allergic, but If you don’t speak cat, or are not willing to speak cat, alas!

why I’m great

Let me tell you about it!

Literally everyone agrees that I’m cute. Beautiful eyes, strong hands, great hairline. I’m still climbing V3 boulders, still biking to work, still not skipping leg day.

I’m good at listening, empathy, and understanding. I’m good at talking frankly about difficult things (sex, money, life choices, etc).

I don’t think I’m funny … but many of my friends disagree with me. I might allow that I have a knack for the ridiculous, if not the sublime.

I’m a very good baker of unaesthetic, delicious things:

I make one heck of a good cocktail; there is vintage glassware, gorgeous ice in the freezer, and time for us to practice perfecting your favorite drink.

I’m financially stable, have no debt, and am “good with money” — by which I mostly mean that I am good at not spending it. My lines go up from home cookin’ and not buying stuff, rather than from any sort of financial wizardry.

I have delightful taste in music: we can go to the opera or the NY Phil as easily as Nowadays or the worst sort of jazz dive. I am, say it softly, a great dancer to house and techno.

Masters At Work ft. India – To Be In Love / The Beatles – It’s All Too Much / Amber – Anyway (Steve Porter Mix 2) / Oklu – God’s Chariot (SH Remix)

even more, even more

My favorite things about New York City, after 10 years here, are the sunsets and the apples.
I’m a Nowadays member and am there kind of a lot, mostly on Sunday mornings.
I’ve got a 🇨🇦 passport, and could in theory get a 🇬🇧 one — we could move to Bristol, Montréal, Berlin, Lisbon, Taipei, Capetown, Montevideo, or ???
Tea over coffee, cocktails over wine or beer. This might the year that I try to figure out white wine, you could teach me?
Some bookshelves — fiction, non-fiction, fiction:

I am finallllllly learning to drive — we sold the family car when I was 14.
The Lichess profile — just touched 1300 in blitz, but am 2100 in puzzle, make your friends jealous!
I have no current social media, thank heavens (I had one Power Tweet, but I have since confirmed that it was PL1, not Fortran).
I’m merely a decent cook, but I can follow recipes — my first try at a soufflé did not collapse.

an outro

Woosh, what a bunch of words — thank you for reading this far. If this is compelling to you, you should get in touch: via an intermediary, or directly via thor at tide-pool.ca. As Carly Rae Jepsen once said:

Call Me Maybe / Count Basie – Sent For You Yesterday, And Here You Come Today / Patrice Rushen – Haven’t You Heard? / Carrie Lucas – Dance With You