The board assumes a woman who leads is somewhere in her forties

Every advert here from a woman who leads seems to have been written by somebody between thirty five and fifty, and every man writing to me has apparently decided in advance that I must be one too. I am sixty two. I have led for thirty one years, I have no intention of stopping, and the assumption is a small thing that quietly shapes my entire inbox.

Sixty two, Salford, thirty one years leading, three arrangements and the longest of them seventeen years.

What has changed with age is nothing whatever about the authority and a good deal about the logistics. I keep a smaller household, I go to bed earlier than most people find plausible, and I want nothing that requires me to be out at night. What I want done, and precisely how I want it done, has not shifted an inch since I was thirty.

The seventeen year arrangement ended when he became ill and went to live near his daughter, and we still speak most weeks. I mention it because it is the only credential worth anything: a man who was under my authority for seventeen years and is still fond of me.

Nothing is for hire and no money moves in either direction. What I do not want is a man in his thirties who has decided an older woman would be understanding, because I am not especially, and the assumption is usually the whole of his interest.