The wanted board · United Kingdom
Looking for a Mistress in London
London has the deepest pool in Britain and the heaviest reputation to see past. The city is known worldwide for its professional side, so men arrive expecting something like a directory and discover, correctly, that women who lead in their private lives are not listed in one. They receive more approaches than anyone else on this board and answer proportionally fewer of them. Being answered here comes down to two things: one specific true sentence about yourself, and being somewhere she can actually reach without changing trains three times.
Posts come from north of the river, the south east, the east, the west and the commuter belt. People lead with their quarter of the city because in a search it decides more than anything else they could tell you about themselves.
Women who lead in London
Lifestyle Mistresses, writing for themselves. They lead in their own relationships and have nothing for hire: no sessions, no tribute, no arrangement with a price attached.
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My replies take a fortnight and that is the point of them
Wants: a man who can wait without asking whether I got his message
Sixteen years. Every arrangement I have had started slowly.
I take about two weeks to answer anything. Not because I am busy, though I am, but because the interval is the most informative test I have and it costs me nothing to run.
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Nothing about my limits is interesting and all of it is final
Wants: a man who reads a limit as a limit
Eleven years leading, and eleven years of the same limits.
No pain. Nothing that leaves anything behind. No degradation, including the affectionate kind. No other people, ever, in any configuration. No animals, no needles, no breath, nothing medical. And no protocol theatre in public, because I find it embarrassing and I always have.
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I will tell you exactly what makes me open the second message
Wants: one man who has read something and can answer a question
Nineteen years leading. Two long dynamics, the last of them nine.
Since I am going to be written to anyway, I may as well be useful and say what actually works, because almost nobody gets it right and the reason is not what men think.
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I counted March: forty two letters, three worth answering
Wants: somebody in the small pile rather than the large one
Twelve years leading, one dynamic currently, room for nothing else.
I kept a tally in March out of curiosity. Forty two letters. Of those, twenty six were interchangeable, in the sense that I could have swapped the names between them and noticed nothing. Nine were rude, or became rude when I did not answer within a day. Four were about money in one direction or the other. Three were worth answering, and I answered all three.
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The self-abasing letter is the fastest way to be deleted
Wants: a competent adult who wants to answer to somebody
Fifteen years. Two arrangements, one of them still going.
About a third of what arrives here opens by telling me the writer is worthless, unworthy, nothing, beneath consideration. I understand where it comes from and I am not going to be cruel about it. But I want to explain, once, why it does not work, because the men doing it think they are showing me something and what they are actually showing me is a man I would have to manage.
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A year of looking and nothing, so it is not only hard from your side
Wants: one man who is still here in six months
Thirteen years leading, and the last two of them alone.
The men on this board write a great deal about how hard it is to be answered. I want to say, from the other side, that a year of looking has produced nothing for me either, and that the difficulty is not distributed the way everybody assumes.
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If you are in the middle of a crisis I am the wrong woman
Wants: somebody whose life is already standing up on its own
Ten years leading, and two arrangements I should have declined.
I have twice taken on a man who was in the middle of something. A collapsing marriage the first time and a job loss with everything attached to it the second. Both times I told myself that structure would help, and both times what actually happened was that I became the emergency service for somebody's whole life and the arrangement stopped being an arrangement.
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I want somebody in my week, not somebody in my Friday
Wants: a man who understands that the ordinary days are the arrangement
Sixteen years leading, three arrangements, all domestic.
Every arrangement I have run has been about the running of a house rather than about anything that happens in a bedroom. That is not a euphemism and it is not modesty. It is the actual content, and men are routinely surprised by it in the third week.
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I am happy to lead. I am not willing to be a first tutorial
Wants: somebody who has already done his own reading
Eighteen years leading, and four years of teaching beginners I did not choose.
For four years I ran what amounted to an unpaid evening class. Man after man arriving with nothing done, no reading, no thought about what he wanted, expecting the woman to supply the vocabulary, the structure, the limits and the confidence, and then to be pleased about it.
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Eight years on the other side, five months on this one
Wants: somebody experienced enough to tell me when I have missed something
Eight years submissive. Five months leading, all of it careful.
I spent eight years submitting to other people and was perfectly happy there. Then a friend asked me to run something for her because nobody else would, and I did, and something rearranged itself that afternoon which has not gone back.
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There is already a man in my life and he knows I wrote this
Wants: a second arrangement, with everything visible to everybody
Twenty years leading. One current arrangement of eleven.
He has read this post. He read the draft, he changed one word in it, and he will read the letters if I ask him to, which I usually do. That is the arrangement and it is not up for renegotiation by anyone arriving now.
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I am a woman who leads and I am also on a rota
Wants: somebody whose week can bend around a rota rather than a diary
Nine years leading, all of it fitted around shift work.
A good deal of what gets written about women who lead assumes a woman with an entirely free evening and a house nobody else uses. I am on a three week rolling rota in a hospital, I have a flat with a wall shared with a family, and I do this anyway, around all of it.
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I will not be sending a photograph and here is the reasoning
Wants: a man who can hold a conversation without a face attached to it
Seventeen years leading, entirely privately.
The photograph question arrives, on average, in the third message. Sometimes it is asked politely and sometimes it is framed as fairness, and once or twice a year somebody becomes aggressive about it, which rather makes the argument for me.
Submissives looking in London
People hoping to submit to a woman who leads, saying what they want and what they will not do before anybody has to ask them.
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I was in this from two thousand and nine and the language has moved
Wants: somebody who does not mind correcting a man who is half obsolete
Five years then, ten years away, four months back.
I was in the middle of all this between about two thousand and nine and two thousand and fourteen. Then I met somebody who was not interested, and I put it away, and it stayed away for ten years, and now I am divorced and forty four and standing in front of the box again.
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Fifty eight, divorced, and saying this out loud for the first time
Wants: patience with a man who is thirty years late
None in practice. A very long time of knowing.
I have known this about myself since I was in my twenties and I have never once said it to another living person. Not to my wife of twenty six years, not to a doctor, not to a friend. It went in a box, the box went on a shelf, and I got on with a perfectly good life in front of it.
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No car, no licence, and this city is harder for it than people think
Wants: a woman within a reasonable journey, or one who does not mind buses
Three years, all of it in this city, one dynamic of eight months.
I cannot drive. Never learned, never had the money to learn, and by the time I could afford it I had lived here long enough that it seemed pointless. It has never been a problem in my life except in this one respect, where it turns out to be a bigger obstacle than anything about me as a person.
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I lead with what I will not do and I think it costs me replies
Wants: a woman who reads a list of limits as information rather than a complaint
Seven years, one dynamic of three, several conversations that stalled.
I put my limits in the first message. Every time. I have been told this is off putting, presumptuous and a bit rude, and I have thought about it seriously and I am still doing it, so I may as well explain myself in public.
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What I wanted was never the thing I kept calling it
Wants: somebody who wants to be answered to rather than performed at
Ten years of wanting the wrong noun. Eight months of the right one.
For ten years I told myself I wanted to be dominated, and every time I got near anything that looked like that I went cold and stopped answering messages. I assumed I was a coward. What I actually am is somebody who wants to be accountable to another person, which is a plainer and much less cinematic thing, and which I could not name until last winter.
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I write too much and I am aware of it, so this is the short version
Wants: a correspondence first, and a woman who reads properly
Two years. Three exchanges, none of which reached a meeting.
The first draft of this ran to nine hundred words and included a paragraph about my childhood. I have deleted it. This is the fourth attempt and it is still the longest post on the page, which tells you the main thing you need to know about me.
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I once offered a woman money and I am still ashamed of it
Wants: a lifestyle arrangement, and nothing that involves a figure
Three years of getting it wrong, one of getting it right.
Four years ago I wrote to a woman who leads, and in my second message I offered to pay for her time. I thought I was being respectful. I thought I was acknowledging that her attention was worth something and that I was not entitled to it for nothing. She never replied, and she was entirely correct not to.
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Two years of reading, and tonight the first thing I have written
Wants: a long conversation before anybody decides anything
Two years of reading. No practice at all, and I will not pretend otherwise.
Two years and four months of reading about this, and until tonight I had not written a word to anybody. That was not caution. It was fear wearing the clothes of research, and somewhere around last autumn the reading stopped teaching me anything and became the thing I did instead of trying.
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I have a full life and this is not a symptom of anything
Wants: a woman who takes the request at face value
Eight years, two arrangements, both ended well.
Twice in the past year a woman has replied to me kindly, at length, explaining that what I probably need is friendship, or possibly a therapist, and that I should be careful about looking for something like this while I am lonely. I am not lonely. I have a brother I see weekly, four friends I have had since school, a choir on Tuesdays and more invitations than I accept.
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Sixty six, retired, and time is the one thing I have plenty of
Wants: a correspondence that might become something, with no clock on it
Twenty years, one arrangement of fourteen, widowed six years ago.
I was in an arrangement for fourteen years with a woman who died six years ago. I am not going to write about that here beyond saying it, because it is the first question anybody asks and I would rather answer it once, in print, than in every conversation.
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She said I came on too strong and I have spent a year working out how
Wants: a slow start with somebody who will tell me when I am rushing
Four years, several conversations, nothing that lasted past two months.
A woman told me last summer that I came on too strong, and then, unusually, she told me what she meant, and I have been chewing on it ever since. It was not the length of my messages or the frequency. It was that I kept offering things. Every message contained another thing I would do, and the effect, she said, was of somebody pushing a pile of gifts across a table before anyone had sat down.
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I learned all of this in another language and it does not carry over
Wants: somebody patient with a man who is fluent and still gets it wrong
Six years at home, three here, and the two do not match.
I moved here three years ago for work. Everything I know about this I learned somewhere else, in another language, among people who did it differently, and I have discovered that none of it translates as neatly as my English does.
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I was one of the men sending the same letter to everybody
Wants: one woman, one letter, written for her and nobody else
Six years of doing this badly, then a year of doing nothing.
I want to confess the thing this board complains about most, because I did it for years and I know exactly how it happens. I wrote one very good letter about myself and sent it, with the name changed, to something close to forty women. Not one of them answered, and I told myself the board was dead.
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I counted the changes on the journey before I wrote to her
Wants: somebody who values that I did the arithmetic first
Nine years, two dynamics, both ended over distance.
Both of the arrangements I have had died of transport rather than of anything to do with each other. Not rows. Just ninety minutes each way and the slow arrival of the thought, on a wet Wednesday in January, that neither of us was going to say it first.
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Twenty five, broke, and none of what I want costs anything
Wants: somebody who does not expect this to involve spending
Eighteen months, mostly conversation, one weekend that went well.
I am twenty five, I share a flat with three people, and I cycle everywhere because the fare adds up in a way that actually matters to me. I am saying this at the top because I have twice been in conversations that quietly assumed a level of spending I do not have, and both times I let it run too long before admitting it.
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Sundays, and only Sundays, and that is not going to change soon
Wants: an arrangement built around one reliable day a week
Twelve years, one long dynamic, ended when we moved apart.
My children are with me from Friday evening to Sunday lunchtime, every week, without exception, and on the weekdays I am at work and then asleep. What is left is Sunday afternoon and Sunday evening. That is the whole of my availability and no amount of goodwill is going to expand it.
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Hospital nights, plain language, and I am not going to dress it up
Wants: structure from someone who works odd hours herself
Eleven years, two dynamics, the longer one ran five.
I push beds and equipment around a hospital between eight at night and eight in the morning, four nights on and four off. When I say my Tuesday is your Saturday I mean it literally, and it has ended two of these before now.
Service and duty in London
People whose interest is usefulness rather than play: standing orders, errands, a household run properly, and being depended on.
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I cook on a Tuesday, I clean the kitchen, and then I leave
Wants: a standing arrangement with a clear end time
Five years, three arrangements, all of them at a kitchen counter.
The arrangement I want is very specific and I have run it three times, so I know it works. I arrive at a set hour with the shopping already done. I cook. I serve. I clear everything, wash up, put away and leave the kitchen better than I found it. Then I go home. I do not stay to eat and I am not asked to.
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Somebody asked me for a deposit and that is how I knew
Wants: an arrangement with nothing financial anywhere near it
Seven years, two arrangements, and one near miss I want to describe.
Last spring I spent five weeks in a conversation with somebody who seemed exactly right. Warm, specific, asked good questions, remembered what I had said. In week six I was asked for a deposit to secure a first meeting, framed as a way of showing I was serious, with a very reasonable explanation attached about time wasters.
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One standing job, every week, done properly, for years if she likes
Wants: one recurring duty rather than a whole arrangement at once
Four years, one arrangement, one weekly duty that ran all of it.
For four years I did one thing. I did the week's shopping for a woman every Thursday. I had a list, I had preferences I had learned, and I put it all away in her kitchen in the order she wanted it. That was the entire arrangement. It ended when she moved north last winter and I have missed it every Thursday since.
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The absence of money is not a detail, it is the whole thing
Wants: a woman who wants somebody useful and expects to give nothing back
Twenty two years of service, three arrangements, all long.
I have been asked twice this year whether I would consider an arrangement where something was paid, in one direction or the other, and both times I have said no and both times the person seemed to think I was being difficult about a technicality.
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Service only, nothing physical ever, and I am not going to change
Wants: a woman for whom the usefulness is the entire arrangement
Eight years, and eight years of explaining this in the second message.
Nothing physical, nothing sexual, ever. Not held back for later, not something that might develop, not a limit I am hoping somebody will patiently work around. I have been the same for eight years and I expect to be the same in twenty.
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Three hours a week, reliably, and I will not pretend I have four
Wants: somebody who would rather have a small promise kept
Ten years, three arrangements, one ended because I overcommitted.
Ten years ago I would have told you I could give somebody a whole weekend. I would have believed it, too, and then I would have started missing things around the second month and inventing reasons, and eventually the arrangement would have ended with me apologising and both of us knowing I had never had the time in the first place. That happened. It is the thing I am most embarrassed about in a decade of this.
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Electrician, thirty four, and I would like a house to look after
Wants: a household with things in it that need fixing properly
Three years, one arrangement, entirely practical.
I am an electrician and I am very good at it. I can also plaster adequately, plumb badly and put up a shelf that will still be there in thirty years. What I want is a house to be responsible for.
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I drive, I am punctual, and I will not talk on the journey unless asked
Wants: a woman who needs the driving and errands taken off her
Nine years, two arrangements, both mostly practical.
I have a car, a clean licence and an unreasonable amount of free time since I dropped to four days last year. Out where I am, everything is twenty minutes away by road and impossible without one, and I have noticed how much of a week that eats for people who do not drive.
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The small formal things, done every week, are what I actually want
Wants: a household with standards and somebody who enforces them
Fifteen years of service. One arrangement of nine.
Boots cleaned properly, which takes twenty minutes and not the four people think. Coats hung and brushed. Shoes on trees. The hall kept as it should be so that leaving the house is never a search. Those small formal jobs, done on a fixed evening, are the part of this I have spent fifteen years wanting.
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I am extremely good at the boring parts of another person's life
Wants: somebody who would like the tedious half of her week taken away
Six years of service, two arrangements, no play in either.
The thing I am best at is the pile of small administrative jobs that everybody has and nobody does. Renewals. Forms. Appointments made at the hour nobody wants to be on hold. Comparing two options and presenting the answer rather than the research. I do it fast, I do it correctly, and I find it genuinely satisfying, which I understand is unusual.
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I was trained for service in my twenties and never used any of it
Wants: somebody who would find formal service useful rather than quaint
Formal training decades ago. Four years of this, latterly.
In my twenties I trained in service in a hotel that no longer exists, under people who took it extremely seriously, and I learned a set of skills the world stopped wanting about a decade later. Laying a table properly. Silver. How to be in a room without being in it. How to anticipate rather than respond.
This page is stage two of five
Knowing where dominant women are is the stage you are standing on. Nothing above it can be acted on until the three stages after it are, and they run in this order for a reason.
Somewhere else
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