My replies take a fortnight and that is the point of them

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.

What happens in a fortnight is this. Roughly half the men send a second message asking whether the first arrived. A quarter send something short and irritable. A few disappear. And a small number do nothing at all, and then, when I write, answer as though no time had passed. Those are the ones worth knowing.

Forty seven, the south east, sixteen years leading, three arrangements, the longest seven years. I am not playing a game. I genuinely do think for a fortnight, and I would rather answer well and late than quickly and carelessly, and I extend the same patience to anybody who needs it from me.

What I am looking for is a man for a long, quiet, domestic arrangement. Rules that operate through a week, real service rather than theatre, and enough room around it that neither of us has to give anything else up. Nothing in it is for sale in either direction.

I should say what the fortnight is not. It is not a test of how much you want it, and it does not mean I want to be chased. A man who fills the silence with proof of his devotion has failed it more thoroughly than one who simply lost interest, because at least the second one was honest.