The gallery that strung you along, how long before you walked?
I had a gallery keep me dangling for nine months once. Nine. Lovely people, lovely space, "we're just reworking our programme, bear with us" and I bore with them till I'd nearly forgotten my own work was in the conversation. Then one day I was passing and there was some fella's stuff up on the wall and I thought, right, fair play to ye, and I never rang them again. No hard feelings even, I just quietly stopped existing to them and they to me.
Anyone else let it run way longer than you should've? And when did the penny drop, was it a slow fade or one particular moment that made you say enough's enough?
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Nine months is brutal, I'd have cracked way earlier. I had one string me along for like four and even that felt ridiculous in hindsight. "We love the work, just waiting on the programming committee" and I'm sitting there checking my email like a kid waiting for a letter. Then I realised I was building my whole schedule around a maybe, and that was the moment for me. Not angry, just suddenly embarrassed for myself. Once the maybe stops being exciting and starts being homework, you're done.
The quiet fade is real though. Nobody even needs to tell you no. You just stop showing up to the conversation and everyone's fine with it. Wild how that works in this world. Hope that fella's stuff was at least good lol.
Ah now, "once the maybe stops being exciting and starts being homework", that's the whole bleedin' thing in one sentence. I'd have saved myself a pile of staring at my phone if I'd had that years ago. The four months is plenty, sure you were ahead of the curve.
And that bit about nobody needing to tell you no, you just stop showing up to the conversation, that's it exactly. It's not even a breakup, it's like the two of ye quietly agreed to never be in the same room again. I still don't know if they ever noticed I'd gone. Probably not. And that's the part that'd embarrass you more than the waiting itself, if you let it. I don't let it. Sure it's their loss and all that, but the real trick is not making that your whole personality after. Just take the work somewhere it's actually wanted and get on with it.