Somebody asked me for a deposit and that is how I knew

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.

I did not send it and the conversation stopped the same day, which told me everything. I am writing it up because I nearly did send it, and the reason I nearly did is that I had already spent five weeks being treated well.

Thirty eight, the south east, seven years of service arrangements, two of them real and good. The lesson I took is not that everybody is a fraud. It is that the request for money is the only reliable signal, because everything else can be performed for five weeks by somebody patient.

So: nothing financial, in any direction, at any point, for any reason. Not a deposit, not expenses, not a gift to prove I am serious, not a figure mentioned in passing. If it appears I stop, and I will not feel foolish about stopping on somebody genuine, because a genuine woman on this board will not be asking.

What I actually want is dull and practical. Errands, a standing list, a house run properly, and somebody who checks. I have two arrangements behind me that were exactly that and neither ever involved a single mention of money.