Offered to hold and got forty replies. How do you pick?

Question

I put up one short post saying I was open to holding for someone, thinking I might get two or three replies over a month. I have forty and they came in within about a day and a half.

Most of them are one line. A few are clearly copy and paste. Maybe six read like an actual person wrote them to me specifically. I feel guilty ignoring anyone and I also do not have the hours to have forty conversations.

For holders who have been through this, how do you actually narrow it down without being unfair about it?

verify_vera · Accepted Answer

You are not being unfair. Forty people sent a message, they did not enter a contract. Reply properly to the six that were written to you and let the rest go. That is not rudeness, that is the only way anyone gets through this without going under.

keeps_the_key · Answer

What I do is ask everyone I am still talking to the same three questions. What do you want out of the first month, what would make you want to stop, and who else knows about this. The answers sort themselves. People who cannot answer the second one have usually not thought about any of it, and people who go vague on the third are the ones who cause the trouble later.

firm_but_fair_f · Answer

Ignore length. I get long messages from people who are not serious and three good lines from people who turn out to be excellent. What I look for is whether they asked me anything at all. Someone who wrote four paragraphs about themselves and no questions is not looking for a person, they are looking for a service.

steady_keeper · Answer

Take one. Not two, not a shortlist you keep warm. Holding well takes more attention than people expect and the second you are running parallel conversations you start giving everyone a slightly worse version of yourself. Pick the one you are most curious about and tell the others honestly that you have started something.

did_not_expect_this · Answer

The three questions are useful, thank you. I have sent them to five people. Two answered within an hour with real answers, one wrote back asking why I needed to know that, and two have not replied at all.

firm_but_fair_f · Answer

The one who asked why you need to know has told you why you need to know.

quiet_holder_j · Answer

Slight disagreement with taking only one. I ran two at once for a year and it was fine, but only because they both knew and the arrangements were completely different shapes. What does not work is two similar ones you are keeping quiet about. That is when you start copying and pasting your own messages and someone notices.

steady_keeper · Answer

Fair correction, and the qualifier is the important half. Two who both know is a different thing from a shortlist. I have seen the shortlist version go wrong far more often than I have seen it go well.

Offered to hold and got forty replies. How do you pick?

Write your reply