Guilt trip

Do you want to know what I feel most guilty about? All right, not most guilty about. That will remain between me and my conscience. But most guilty about in terms of my professional relationship with you.

It’s my lack of commitment. It’s not responding to one of your pitches with a clear-cut yes or no.

Believe me, I want to but I can’t.

It’s not that I don’t recognise a good story. It’s that the decision is not mine alone. I am like a waiter who offers up tasty morsels to the editors of the sections where the food coverage resides. 

I can steer them away from the soup of the day because it tastes of armpits and towards the plain-sounding lamb chop which is actually chef’s speciality, but they, as the diners, make the final selection. Sometimes they snap up my suggestions, sometimes they turn them down flat. More often than not, though, they go, “Hmmm, yes, could do. Let me think about it…”

And then they forget. So I remind them again and so the cycle goes on.

Almost exactly as it is with you and me. You suggest something, I say “Yes, could do” and then you don’t hear from me. So you remind me again…

I know it’s frustrating, and I’m sorry. I wish it were different. Rest assured though, that the good pitches are still sitting there, just waiting for their moment in the spotlight.

So keep reminding and hopefully we’ll get there in the end.