There is an assumption about men like me and I would like to head it off

The assumption arrives about the fourth message, usually gently, and it is that what a man in his late thirties really wants when he says structure is somebody to look after him. To decide what he eats, tell him when to sleep and generally take responsibility for a grown adult who would rather not be one.

That is a real thing that some people genuinely want and I am not sneering at it. It is not remotely what I want and I have spent eleven years being quietly redirected towards it.

Thirty nine, Stockport, eleven years in, three dynamics, the longest four years.

What I want is closer to an employment relationship than a domestic one, if that makes sense without sounding cold. High standards, real duties, and being held to them by somebody who expects competence rather than offering care. I am extremely capable. I run a team of eleven people. I do not want any of that taken off me and I do not want to be softened.

What appeals is being answerable to somebody who is harder to satisfy than I am, which is difficult, because I am quite hard to satisfy.

What I do not want, to be entirely clear: nothing infantilising, no pet names, nobody deciding my bedtime, and no framing where I am looked after. If that is the shape of what you want, we are not suited, and I would rather say so in the post than disappoint somebody in the fifth week.